By PatrickPretty.com 2:56 p.m. Jan. 11, 2010
UPDATED 7:03 P.M. ET (U.S.A. JAN. 12) A Beverly Hills radio host pitched his fraud scheme in Persian and targeted Iranian-Americans in Greater Los Angeles, the SEC said today.
Client funds were used to build a mansion for John Farahi, 52, and and his wife, Gissou Rastegar Farahi, 50, the agency said. Client funds also were transferred to the Farahi Family Trust. John Farahi hosts the daily radio program.
Named defendants in the case were the Farahis, Beverly Hills-based NewPoint Financial Services Inc. and Elaheh Amouei, 54. The SEC identified Amouei as NewPoint’s controller and the “personal bookkeeper” of the Farahis.
A company named Triple “J” Plus LLC operated by John Farahi was named a relief defendant. John and Gissou Farahi have control over the Triple “J” bank accounts, the SEC said.
“They lured victims with false promises of investment safety while secretly enriching themselves and diverting investor funds for their personal use,” said Rosalind R. Tyson, director of the SEC’s Los Angeles Regional Office.
All of the defendants’ assets have been frozen in the case, which includes allegations that clients were told they were investing in FDIC-insured certificates of deposit, government bonds or corporate bonds issued by companies backed by funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).
TARP is the $700-billion program operated by the Treasury Department to shore up banks.
“The vast majority of the money raised was transferred to accounts held by Defendants John and Gissou Farahi,” the SEC said in its complaint. “John and Gissou Farahi, in tum, used the investor funds to, among other things, construct a multi-million dollar personal residence in Beverly Hills, California and to engage in risky options futures trading in the stock market in which . . . John and Gissou Farahi lost more than $18 million in 2008 and the beginning of 2009.”
Investors were asked to invest in the debentures by the Farahis and/or Elaheh Amouei, NewPoint’s controller, after making an appointment to discuss investment opportunities offered by NewPoint, the SEC said.
Since at least 2003, NewPoint has sold more than $20 million worth of debentures to more than 100 investors. Clients were told their investments were low-risk, the SEC said.
At some point, NewPoint prepared Private Placement Memoranda (PPM) literature describing the opportunity as high risk, but most investors said they never received the material, the SEC said. Investors also did not know that they were making loans to John Farahi.
“[N]ot only did Defendants John and Gissou Farahi and/or Defendant Amouei fail to provide the PPMs to most investors, it appears that they only added the disclosure regarding loans to Defendant John Farahi in 2009, after the offering ceased, the SEC said.
“[T]he vast majority of the money raised was actually transferred to accounts controlled by the Farahis, including an account at relief defendant Triple ‘J,’” the SEC said.
Beginning roughly in June 2009, the SEC said, John Farahi and Amouei “made further misrepresentations to investors in an effort to lull them into keeping their money with NewPoint.
“Investors have allegedly been told that their money is safe and that they are guaranteed to get the entirety of their investment back — despite the fact that NewPoint lacks sufficient funds to make all investors whole,” the SEC said. “John Farahi has also paid back some investors on a selective basis while failing to return money to other investors who have asked for a return of their investment.”
Amouei, accordring to the SEC, “falsely told some of the investors who have not received a return of their investment that NewPoint was unable to return their money because the Commission has frozen NewPoint’s financial accounts.”
The NewPoint case in California became the second fraud case since November in which a radio show allegedly was used to pitch a fraudulent investment program.
Christian radio host Pat Kiley of Minnesota was accused by the SEC and the CFTC in November of promoting a $190 million Ponzi scheme with Trevor Cook, who reportedly used some of the proceeds to buy a submarine to access a private island he bought in Canada.
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