Investment Fraud

An Orange County Superior Court judge ruled Wednesday that an evangelical preacher had conned an heiress out of nearly $500,000 and ordered him to repay the money plus $250,000 in punitive damages. Mel Tari, 48, of Dana Point, an evangelist and author of several Christian books, must repay Christine Kline, 41, of Denver for the small fortune she signed over to him. Kline, who had inherited Capital Printing Co.

Here is a roundup of alleged cons, frauds and schemes to watch out for. Computer virus — The Federal Trade Commission has started mailing refunds to 300,000 consumers who were victims of a scam in which they were tricked into buying unnecessary software to remove nonexistent viruses and spyware from their computers. The perpetrators of the scheme caused ads to appear on victims' computers, informing them that a "system scan" had detected viruses and other threats that needed to be removed immediately.

The Federal Trade Commission filed complaints Thursday against one of the nation's biggest coin dealers and the industry's largest appraiser, claiming both Orange County firms misled investors. The two civil cases are separate and unrelated. The FTC charged Newport Beach-based Hannes Tulving Rare Coin Investment with running a Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors out of more than $40 million. The complaint, filed in U.S.

Here is a roundup of alleged cons, frauds and schemes to watch out for. Not easy being green ? The Federal Trade Commission said it reached a settlement with Tested Green, a company that issued "green" environmental certifications to businesses for as much as $550. According to the FTC, from February 2009 to April 2010, the company sold certifications that were "worthless" because Tested Green never examined the businesses. The FTC said Tested Green also deceived customers by citing endorsements from the National Green Business Assn.

Orange County pastor Ralph A. Wilkerson has agreed to answer questions about a former associate accused of raising more than $160 million from evangelical Christians in an elaborate international investment fraud, Wilkerson's attorney said. Wilkerson, 77, was criticized last month by a court-appointed receiver who said the pastor had failed to help recover assets that would benefit people left destitute by the alleged scam run by Gregory E. Setser, an Inland Empire-based entrepreneur.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has opened an investigation into an Orange County real estate lending company that is owned by the husband of a California state assemblywoman. In an e-mail to his firm's roughly 3,000 investors, Point Center Financial Inc. President Dan J. Harkey disclosed that the SEC had subpoenaed records from the firm last week.

To many, the dapper 72-year-old was simply "the General," and not merely because of the tales he told of life in the British military. It was right there on his parking space beneath the Sunset Boulevard office tower: "General Debden-Moss." He'd arrive in his Lincoln from his secluded Beverly Hills home and head to his 10th-floor office suite, down the hall from Pat Boone Enterprises, to conduct a trade that seemed totally out of place among all the entertainment firms. Hard commodities.

When Forrest and Lee Bomar became tired of the volatility of their stock investments a few years ago, they turned to their church for guidance. The Baptist Foundation of Arizona, an investment program that targeted Baptists and purported to lend money to build Baptist churches and retirement homes, had just sent them a postcard. The offer: a fixed-rate investment that promised a competitive return and the spiritual bonus of "doing God's work" with their money.

Drug giant Merck & Co. said the planned spinoff of its Medco Health Solutions Inc. subsidiary to shareholders should happen this summer. Merck, which said in April that it would jettison Medco, on Wednesday filed details of the deal with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The transaction is expected to be tax-free to Merck holders. Medco is a pharmacy benefits management firm that develops prescription benefit programs for employers and runs a mail-order and online pharmacy.

Three Riverside County businessmen and four associates were criminally charged Thursday after prosecutors said they sold false investments and committed grand theft in a scheme that bilked clients of $17 million and left many broke. "The schemes . . . collected tens of millions of dollars and victimized both individual investors and financial institutions," U.S. Atty. George S. Cardona said at a news conference in Riverside. "Using storefronts across the Inland Empire and numerous phone lines assigned to their shell companies, the schemers misled banks into believing that prospective borrowers had significant assets, when in fact the schemers were engaging in a mortgage fraud shell game built on lies to both their investors and the banks."

Here is a roundup of alleged cons, frauds and schemes to watch out for. Telemarketing fraud The FBI wants to help you avoid giving your money to criminals on the telephone. Once you fall victim to telemarketing fraud, you'll almost certainly never get your money back. Before you buy, the FBI recommends that you take these precautions: Don't buy from an unfamiliar company, ask for written material by mail and check out companies on the Web. Websites for the Better Business Bureau, the state attorney general and the National Fraud Information Center are good places to start your search.

Here is a roundup of alleged cons, frauds and schemes to watch out for. Check your phone bill ? A federal judge has ordered a San Francisco company to stop its telemarketing operations, saying the company charged consumers millions of dollars for Internet services they did not order. The judge also ordered Inc21.com Corp. to pay nearly $38 million in restitution to consumers. The Federal Trade Commission had accused the company of operating a "cramming" operation in which unauthorized charges were placed on phone bills.

Beverly Hills financial advisor Stanley Chais made a fortune serving as Bernard L. Madoff's connection to Southern California's rich and powerful. He hobnobbed with Hollywood elite, won praise as a generous philanthropist and kept homes on both coasts. These days, the 84-year-old Chais spends the bulk of his time shuttling from one medical appointment to the next, tormented by an ongoing federal criminal investigation and myriad lawsuits that could ruin him financially. Eight months have passed since the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan disclosed that it was considering criminal charges against Chais, but there has been no indictment and little explanation of where the case stands.

Despite the headlines about con artists like Bernie Madoff, your chance of getting swindled out of your life savings is relatively slim. But the possibility grows as you get older. One senior in five has been taken in some form of financial con, according to a survey released last week. And half the seniors surveyed reported experiencing some degree of attempted economic exploitation, such as being pressured to buy foreign lottery tickets or being pitched with incomprehensible investments.

A Huntington Park man who targeted Spanish-speaking investors with promises of big annual returns starting in 2006 has been found guilty of bilking more than 2,000 victims out of more than $62 million. Milton Retana, a Salvadoran citizen, was convicted Tuesday by a federal jury in Los Angeles on six counts of mail fraud and one count of making false statements to investigators. Retana, 46, faces up to 125 years in federal prison. He is to be sentenced April 26. "There are a lot of these Ponzi schemes going on right now, with a particularly high number of them happening in East Los Angeles targeting Spanish-speaking people," said Jim Bowman, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles.

The host of a popular Persian-language radio talk show was accused by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission of defrauding investors out of more than $20 million in a long-running investment scheme that targeted the Iranian American community. In a lawsuit filed Monday in federal court in Los Angeles, the SEC accused John Farahi; his wife, Gissou Rastegar Farahi; and their company, NewPoint Financial Services, of losing millions of dollars in volatile investments they had promoted as safe.

Federal regulators said Thursday that they obtained a preliminary injunction against two Southern California men accused of defrauding investors who put nearly $10 million into a fund to invest in mobile home parks. A lawsuit filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission says Heath M. Biddlecome, 41, of Carpinteria diverted nearly half of the money raised and used it for so-called day trading. The suit names as defendants Biddlecome; his firm, California Wealth Management Group of Culver City; and William C. Tak, 43, of Newport Beach, a senior vice president at the firm.

A campaign of enforcement and consumer education programs to combat an ever-increasing array of sophisticated high-tech investment scams was announced Wednesday by federal and state regulators. Called "Project Field of Schemes," the effort is aimed at new types of investment fraud involving such areas as movie production, Internet "shopping malls" and snail ranching--as well as old standbys like pyramid schemes and conventional telemarketing fraud.

Federal regulators said Thursday that they obtained a preliminary injunction against two Southern California men accused of defrauding investors who put nearly $10 million into a fund to invest in mobile home parks. A lawsuit filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission says Heath M. Biddlecome, 41, of Carpinteria diverted nearly half of the money raised and used it for so-called day trading. The suit names as defendants Biddlecome; his firm, California Wealth Management Group of Culver City; and William C. Tak, 43, of Newport Beach, a senior vice president at the firm.