{"id":3081,"date":"2014-07-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-07-02T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/silverlaw.lawblogger.net\/blog\/winsome-investment-trust-u-s-ventures-lc-and-their-individual-owners-assessed-44-million-sanction-for-commodity-pool-fraud-and-misappropriation\/"},"modified":"2017-12-22T14:26:31","modified_gmt":"2017-12-22T19:26:31","slug":"winsome-investment-trust-u-s-ventures-lc-and-their-individual-owners-assessed-44-million-sanction-for-commodity-pool-fraud-and-misappropriation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/winsome-investment-trust-u-s-ventures-lc-and-their-individual-owners-assessed-44-million-sanction-for-commodity-pool-fraud-and-misappropriation\/","title":{"rendered":"Winsome Investment Trust, U.S. Ventures LC, and their Individual Owners Assessed $44 Million Sanction for Commodity Pool Fraud and Misappropriation"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has obtained a federal court Order imposing $44 million in sanctions against Robert J. Andres of Houston, TX; his company, Winsome Investment Trust (\u201cWinsome\u201d); Robert L. Holloway of San Diego, CA; and his company, US Ventures LC (\u201cUS Ventures\u201d); for fraud in operating a <a title=\"commodities\" href=\"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/securities-arbitration\/commodities-disputes\/\"  target=\"_blank\">commodities futures pool<\/a>.\u00a0 The sanction includes a civil monetary penalty of over $32 million as well as a restitution award of $12 million to be paid to defrauded investors.\u00a0 The Order also imposes upon the individuals and companies a permanent trading and registration ban.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Order entered by the Honorable Bruce S. Jenkins of the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah, Andres and Winsome (from May 2005 through November 2008) fraudulently solicited and accepted over $50 million from investors who were told that they would be investing in a commodity futures pool operated by Holloway and US Ventures.\u00a0 To garner the investors\u2019 funds, Andres and Winsome purportedly made false statements claiming that the investment program had a successful track record and that each investor would be guaranteed a return of his\/her principal plus profits.\u00a0 The Court found those representations to be false, as Holloway and US Ventures\u2019 futures trading actually suffered nearly $11 million in net losses.<\/p>\n<p>The Court went on to conclude that the defendants misappropriated the majority of participant funds to pay investors false \u201cprofits\u201d in a manner akin to a <a title=\"ponzi scheme\" href=\"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/ponzi-scheme.html\"  target=\"_blank\">Ponzi scheme<\/a> and that the defendants used investor funds for other improper purposes, such as providing money to Andres\u2019 wife, funding Holloway\u2019s and his wife\u2019s lavish personal expenses (houses, cars, jewelry, etc.), and investing in various unrelated and undisclosed businesses including a business Holloway\u2019s wife ran on eBay.\u00a0 The Court Order explained that Andres and Holloway attempted to conceal the fraud by directing employees to falsify participants\u2019 account records and to falsely represent to investors that the pool funds were trading profitably with virtually no losses during the relevant period.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/winsome-investment-trust-u-s-ventures-lc-and-their-individual-owners-assessed-44-million-sanction-for-commodity-pool-fraud-and-misappropriation\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading Winsome Investment Trust, U.S. Ventures LC, and their Individual Owners Assessed $44 Million Sanction for Commodity Pool Fraud and Misappropriation\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has obtained a federal court Order imposing $44 million in sanctions against Robert J. Andres of Houston, TX; his company, Winsome Investment Trust (\u201cWinsome\u201d); Robert L. Holloway of San Diego, CA; and his company, US Ventures LC (\u201cUS Ventures\u201d); for fraud in operating a commodities futures pool.\u00a0 The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[600,595,590,613,593],"tags":[539,540,376],"class_list":["post-3081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commodities","category-investment-fraud","category-misrepresentation-and-omission-of-material-facts","category-nfa-arbitration","category-ponzi-schemes","tag-commodities-2","tag-nfa-arbitration-2","tag-ponzi-schemes-2"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Winsome Investment Trust, U.S. Ventures LC, and their Individual Owners Assessed $44 Million Sanction for Commodity Pool Fraud and Misappropriation &#8212; Securities Arbitration Lawyers Blog &#8212; July 2, 2014<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has obtained a federal court Order imposing $44 million in sanctions against Robert J. 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