FINRA announced today that it has ordered Brookville Capital Partners, LLC of Uniondale, New York to pay restitution of over $1 million to the victims of a fraud relating to the sales of a private placement offering. The regulatory authority also ordered the firm to pay a $500,000 fine and barred its President, Anthony Lodati, from the securities industry.

FINRA found that Brookville and Lodati defrauded their customers between January and October 2011 in a scheme pertaining to the sale of a private placement offering called Wilshire Capital Partners Group LLC, through which investors would supposedly have an indirect interest in pre-initial public offering shares of Fisker Automotive.

During the period of illicit activity, Lodati discovered that John Mattera, a man with a substantial criminal and regulatory background, had effected transactions on behalf of Wilshire as Wilshire’s CEO and Managing Director. Lodati failed to disclose that Mattera had been sanctioned by the SEC in 2010 for securities fraud and convicted of a felony in Florida in 2003. Lodati and Brookville intentionally withheld this information and information about Mattera’s involvement with Wilshire and continued to solicit its customers to invest. In sum, Brookville sold over $1 million worth of interests in Wilshire to 29 customers. Brookville received more than $104,000 in commissions for the sales.

In settling this matter, Brookville and Lodati neither admitted nor denied the charges but consented to the entry of FINRA’s findings.

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