{"id":2790,"date":"2016-03-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-03-16T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/silverlaw.lawblogger.net\/blog\/sec-charges-oregon-based-aequitas-management-llc-executives-operating-350-million-investment-fraud\/"},"modified":"2017-12-22T14:18:32","modified_gmt":"2017-12-22T19:18:32","slug":"sec-charges-oregon-based-aequitas-management-llc-executives-operating-350-million-investment-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/sec-charges-oregon-based-aequitas-management-llc-executives-operating-350-million-investment-fraud\/","title":{"rendered":"SEC Charges Oregon-based Aequitas Management LLC and Its Executives with Operating $350 Million Investment Fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sec.gov\/news\/pressrelease\/2016-49.html\"  target=\"_blank\">SEC<\/a>) has charged Oregon-based Aequitas Management, LLC (\u201cAequitas\u201d), and several of its executives with operating a $350 million investment scheme that defrauded investors in a last-ditch effort to raise funds to save Aequitas from a complete financial collapse. Aequitas, along with CEO Robert J. Jesenik, Executive Vice President Brian A. Oliver, and former CFO and COO N. Scott Gillis, were charged with multiple violations of federal securities laws in a <a href=\"http:\/\/ftp.sec.gov\/litigation\/complaints\/2016\/comp23485.pdf\"  target=\"_blank\">Complaint<\/a> filed in Oregon federal court.\u00a0 The SEC is seeking injunctive relief, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, prejudgment interest, and civil monetary penalties as well as bars prohibiting Jesenik, Oliver, and Gillis from serving as officers or directors of any public company.<\/p>\n<p>According to the SEC\u2019s Complaint, Aequitas and four of its corporate affiliates (Aequitas Holdings LLC, Aequitas Commercial Finance LLC, Aequitas Capital Management Inc., and Aequitas Investment Management LLC) defrauded more than 1,500 investors nationwide between January 2014 and January 2016 into believing they were making health care, education, and transportation-related investments. To the contrary, the Complaint alleges that invested funds were instead being used for other purposes, including to pay lucrative salaries and extravagant perks for Jesenik, Oliver, and Gillis; and to stave off the businesses\u2019 impending financial collapse.\u00a0 In mid-2014, Corinthian Colleges, a for-profit education provider, defaulted on its recourse obligations to Aequitas, which significantly increased Aequitas\u2019 already dire cash flow problems.\u00a0 Rather than disclose to its investors the rapidly deteriorating state of its finances, Aequitas purportedly hid that vital information and used investor funds to keep its enterprise afloat &#8212; even using some new investor funds to pay earlier investors in a classic <a href=\"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/securities-arbitration\/ponzi-scheme\/\"  target=\"_blank\">Ponzi scheme<\/a> fashion.\u00a0 By November 2015, Aequitas\u2019 operations reached a point of nearly total collapse; and in February 2016, the firm dismissed two-thirds of its employees and hired a Chief Restructuring Officer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe alleged that Aequitas had severe and persistent cash flow shortages and top executives knew they weren\u2019t using money raised from investors like they said they would.\u00a0 But they refused to disclose the true financial condition, continued to draw lucrative salaries, and roped even more unknowing investors into a losing venture,\u201d said Jina L. Choi, Director of the SEC\u2019s San Francisco Regional Office.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/sec-charges-oregon-based-aequitas-management-llc-executives-operating-350-million-investment-fraud\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading SEC Charges Oregon-based Aequitas Management LLC and Its Executives with Operating $350 Million Investment Fraud\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged Oregon-based Aequitas Management, LLC (\u201cAequitas\u201d), and several of its executives with operating a $350 million investment scheme that defrauded investors in a last-ditch effort to raise funds to save Aequitas from a complete financial collapse. Aequitas, along with CEO Robert J. Jesenik, Executive Vice President Brian [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[595,580],"tags":[287],"class_list":["post-2790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-investment-fraud","category-stockbroker-misconduct","tag-investment-fraud-2"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>SEC Charges Oregon-based Aequitas Management LLC and Its Executives with Operating $350 Million Investment Fraud &#8212; Securities Arbitration Lawyers Blog &#8212; March 16, 2016<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If you invested in Aequitas notes, you may be able to recover some of your investment losses. Contact Silver Law Group today to discuss your options.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/sec-charges-oregon-based-aequitas-management-llc-executives-operating-350-million-investment-fraud\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"SEC Charges Oregon-based Aequitas Management LLC and Its Executives with Operating $350 Million Investment Fraud &#8212; Securities Arbitration Lawyers Blog &#8212; March 16, 2016\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"If you invested in Aequitas notes, you may be able to recover some of your investment losses. Contact Silver Law Group today to discuss your options.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Silver Law Group\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"SEC Charges Oregon-based Aequitas Management LLC and Its Executives with Operating $350 Million Investment Fraud &#8212; Securities Arbitration Lawyers Blog &#8212; March 16, 2016","description":"If you invested in Aequitas notes, you may be able to recover some of your investment losses. Contact Silver Law Group today to discuss your options.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/sec-charges-oregon-based-aequitas-management-llc-executives-operating-350-million-investment-fraud\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"SEC Charges Oregon-based Aequitas Management LLC and Its Executives with Operating $350 Million Investment Fraud &#8212; Securities Arbitration Lawyers Blog &#8212; March 16, 2016","twitter_description":"If you invested in Aequitas notes, you may be able to recover some of your investment losses. Contact Silver Law Group today to discuss your options.","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Silver Law Group","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/sec-charges-oregon-based-aequitas-management-llc-executives-operating-350-million-investment-fraud\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/sec-charges-oregon-based-aequitas-management-llc-executives-operating-350-million-investment-fraud\/"},"author":{"name":"Silver Law Group","@id":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/de64d999508b1ad10d608a99f0d2e752"},"headline":"SEC Charges Oregon-based Aequitas Management LLC and Its Executives with Operating $350 Million Investment Fraud","datePublished":"2016-03-16T04:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2017-12-22T19:18:32+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/sec-charges-oregon-based-aequitas-management-llc-executives-operating-350-million-investment-fraud\/"},"wordCount":497,"keywords":["investment fraud"],"articleSection":["Investment Fraud","Stockbroker Misconduct"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/sec-charges-oregon-based-aequitas-management-llc-executives-operating-350-million-investment-fraud\/","url":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/sec-charges-oregon-based-aequitas-management-llc-executives-operating-350-million-investment-fraud\/","name":"SEC Charges Oregon-based Aequitas Management LLC and Its Executives with Operating $350 Million Investment Fraud &#8212; Securities Arbitration Lawyers Blog &#8212; March 16, 2016","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-03-16T04:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2017-12-22T19:18:32+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/de64d999508b1ad10d608a99f0d2e752"},"description":"If you invested in Aequitas notes, you may be able to recover some of your investment losses. 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