Welliver Pleads Guilty To Securities Fraud
David Blaine Welliver, whose career as a financial advisor began in the early 1990s with a $400 classified ad promoting his one-man office, ended that career by recently pleading guilty to a charge of securities fraud in a St. Paul, Minnesota federal courtroom. He is looking at up to five years in prison. The former advisor is the great-grandson of Val J. Rothschild, who co-founded St. Paul's oldest mortgage banking and real estate sales company over 130 years ago. Welliver's career issues started many years ago when he was promoted at Technimar Industries Inc. of Houston. The company wanted to build a $35 million plant outside of Grand Rapids, Minnesota to produce a composite building product called Stonite under license with an Italian company. The Minneapolis police and fire pension put millions into the project on Welliver's advice, unaware that he was also a fundraiser for the company. Technimar collapsed without ever producing any Stonite. The Minneapolis Police Relief [...]