Securities Lawyers Blog
The law offices of Gana Weinstein LLP are investigating the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) charges and asset freeze against several individuals and companies behind what the agency calls a $102 million Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors throughout the country. According to the SEC’s complaint, the defendants misled 600 investors through sales of securities in issuers First Nationle Solution LLC (First Nationle), United RL Capital Services (United RL), and Percipience Global Corp. (Percipience Global). The so-called advisors involved charged by the SEC include Perry Santillo, Christopher Parris, Paul LaRocco, John Piccarreto, and Thomas Brenner (the Advisors).
The SEC alleged that investors were solicited by the Advisors after they had acquired the brokerage practices from retiring investment advisors or through a sale of their business. After the business was acquired investors were told that their funds would be invested in companies with guaranteed dividends returns. However, the SEC alleges that the defendants stole $20 million of investor funds, paid $38.5 million in Ponzi payments to other investors, and transferred the remainder in transactions that the SEC believes was unrelated to the companies’ claimed businesses.
The SEC provides an example of the Advisors use of stolen investor funds. The SEC alleges that Santillo used stolen money to fund a jet-setting lifestyle including paying for housing in multiple states, car leases, expenditures at a country club and a Las Vegas resort and casino. The SEC alleged that Santillo at a nightclub in Las Vegas commissioned a song about himself where the lyrics refer to (Perry) Santillo as “King Perry.” The song also allegedly contained lyrics concerning Santillo’s lifestyle with his stolen funds as: “pop the champagne in L.A., New York to Florida; buy another bottle just to spray it all over ya.”
If your investment advisor recommended investing with Perry Santillo, Christopher Parris, Paul LaRocco, John Piccarreto, or Thomas Brennen we would like to hear from you. The attorneys at Gana Weinstein LLP are experienced in representing investors in cases of investment fraud and brokerage firms failure to supervise their representatives. The federal securities laws and the FINRA rules require firms to monitor and supervise its employees in order to detect and prevent brokers from offering investments in this fashion. In order to properly supervise their brokers each firm is required to have procedures in order to monitor the activities of each advisor’s activities and interaction with the public. The sale of an advisor’s business to unscrupulous persons occurs where brokerage firms either fail to put in place a reasonable supervisory system or fail to actually implement that system.
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