Posted by Jayce Chavez.
Mark Moskowitz, a 48-year-old Short Hills New Jersey resident, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Katharine Hayden to one charge of wire fraud. He admitted to fraudulently using investment money for his personal use. He ran a trading company and defrauded investors of more than $675,000 and used the money for himself. His company was called Edge Trading which was created in 2012, he, “told his investors that the company invested in equities and contracts and was growing even though it was not.” Moskowitz was fined, separately by the New Jersey Bureau of Securities, for$1 million in civil penalties for the sale of fraudulent unregistered securities and misusing investor’s funds. He will be sentenced July 5, 2017 and could face a maximum of 10 years in prison and $250,000 fine.
Joseph Meli, a 42 year old Manhattan New York resident; and Steven Simmons, a 48-year-old Wilton Connecticut resident were arrested in late January this year, “on charges alleging they enticed wealthy individuals to make multi-million-dollar investments.” These gentlemen were caught by a civil complaint to the Securities and Exchange Commission, claiming that this Ponzi scheme led people in 13 states to invest $81 million. This scheme included investments in businesses that would purchase large sections of tickets for concerts and musicals. The SEC says that at least $51 million of the $81 million was used to pay off other investors and for personal expenses for Meli, Simmons, and other coconspirators. Only Meli was charged with the civil complaint but both men were charged criminally with conspiracy, securities fraud and wire fraud. Both men were then freed on a $1 million bail after a prosecutor’s request for them to be held without bail was rejected.
Both of these cases are similar not only because they were both people scheming investors of their money but large sums of the money were used for personal expenses. These cases had criminals who fraudulently used investors’ money for everything but what they had promised the investors. In the first case, Moskowitz had used most of the $625,000 for himself, while on the second case, the 63% of the $81 million was fraudulently split amongst Meli, Simmons, and other co-conspirators. Moreover, this shows that there are Ponzi schemes that range between hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions of dollars. Thus, we must be careful when investing into corporations which are not well-known or established.
Jayce is an accounting major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2019.
Sources:
http://www.nj.com/essex/index.ssf/2017/03/short_hills_man_admits_to_675k_ponzi_scheme.html
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/01/28/2-men-allegedly-raised-81m-in-hamilton-ponzi-scheme.html