Medical Capital COO Gets 10 Years For Ponzi Scheme

Joseph J. Lampariello, the former president and Chief Operating Officer of Medical Capital Holdings Inc., was sentenced to ten years in federal prison by U.S. District Judge David O. Carter. Additionally, Lampariello was ordered to pay nearly $40 million in restitution to investors. Medical Capital was a private placement that turned into a Ponzi scheme, destroying dozens of broker-dealers. The company was a medical receivables financing company that operated in southern California. Raising money through a network of independent broker-dealers, it oversaw funds that were meant to buy account receivables from accredited medical providers, made secured loans, and provided money for general operating expenses. For more than 11 months in 2008 and 2009 Lampariello misappropriated funds invested with one of the Medical Capital series of deals and used the money to pay himself administrative fees, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California. Through the company, Lampariello defrauded over 700 investors of almost $49 [...]

FINRA December 2015 Disciplinary Actions: Part II

Wunderlich Securities, Inc. (Memphis, TN) submitted an AWC in which the firm was censured and fined $50,000. FINRA found that it failed to establish, maintain, and enforce an adequate supervisory system and written procedures regarding the preparation and dissemination of consolidated reports. The findings stated that although the firm’s WSPs expressly permitted the preparation and dissemination of consolidated reports, they did not adequately address how the firm would supervise the use of consolidated reports. The firm also failed to establish, maintain, and enforce an adequate supervisory system or written procedures to ensure the accuracy of any valuation information that was provided by a registered representative in a consolidated report and mandating the inclusion in consolidated reports of specific disclosures regarding the source and accuracy of any valuation information that was provided by a registered representative. In addition, the firm failed to establish, maintain, and enforce an adequate supervisory system and written procedures to ensure that supervisory reviews of consolidated reports were [...]

History Of Investors Capital Corporation’s Malfeasance

Investors Capital Corporation, a dually-registered independent Broker/Dealer and Investment Advisory firm, has a long history of malfeasance. In the summer of 2014, Patricia S. Miller, a former financial adviser with ICC, was arrested for orchestrating a massive Ponzi scheme that cost her clients millions in savings. Through her scheme, she obtained $4.1 million from over 80 victims and was sentenced earlier this year to six years in prison. According to her indictment, “from in or about January 2002, through May 2014, [Ms.] Miller defrauded and obtained money and property from clients by means of materially false and fraudulent pretenses, representations and promises concerning purported investments that Miller never made on behalf of the clients.” This activity occurred while Miller was a registered representative of ICC. Another former ICC adviser, Haran Brucker, who was registered with ICC from May 2004 to December 2012, has been involved in seven customer disputes since 2002. Though two complaints were denied, the other five were settled for [...]

FINRA Expels Halcyon Cabot Partners And Bars CEO And CCO

FINRA expelled New York-based Halcyon Cabot Partners, Ltd., and barred Chief Executive Officer Michael Morris and Chief Compliance Officer Ronald Heineman from the securities industry, for fraud, sales practice abuses, and widespread supervisory and anti-money laundering failures. FINRA found that Halcyon, Morris and Heineman engaged in a scheme to conceal a kickback of private placement fees. FINRA further found that Halcyon, Morris and Heineman, along with a previously barred registered representative, Craig Josephberg, agreed to conceal the discount the issuer provided to a venture capital firm when it purchased a private placement in a cancer drug development company. The scheme was effected through a bogus placement fee agreement that was entered into after the venture capital firm had already agreed to purchase the entirety of the offerings. Halcyon did not perform any work, as there was already a buyer in place, but rather returned almost all of its $1.75 million placement fee to the investor through sham consulting agreements. This fraudulent [...]