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The South Florida residents who operated an alleged $6 million Ponzi scheme that targeted elderly investors and small-business owners have been ordered to pay a total of $2.8 million in disgorgement and penalties, according the Securities and Exchange Commission.
On Monday, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida entered final judgments against Neil Burkholz of Boca Raton, Florida, and Frank Bianco of Pembroke Pines, Florida, the SEC said Tuesday.
The SEC previously charged Burkholz, Bianco and others in an emergency action where it obtained a temporary restraining order and subsequently a preliminary injunction against the defendants for conducting an alleged Ponzi scheme that defrauded at least 55 investors.
The SEC's complaint, filed Nov. 14, alleged that Burkholz, Bianco and their companies Palm Financial Management and Shore Management Systems solicited investors by falsely representing that their proprietary options trading strategies were enormously profitable. However, in reality, as claimed in the complaint, the defendants invested less than 50% of investor funds and those investments resulted in almost-total losses.
The SEC complaint alleged that the defendants misappropriated the remaining funds by using them to repay other investors and by transferring about $880,000 of investor funds to Burkholz, Bianco and their spouses for personal use. The defendants sent false reports to investors to cover up their fraudulent conduct and give the investors the false impression they were generating positive returns, according to the complaint.
