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An unregistered advisor who allegedly used the alias "Dr. Terrence Cash" to conceal his identity and criminal past from investors has been arrested and charged with defrauding more than $4 million from multiple investors through the offer and sale of investments in a fictitious investment fund, according to Audrey Strauss, acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
In a complaint filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Martin S. Bell and Robert L. Boone claimed Terrence Chalk, of Passaic, New Jersey, and Orlando, Florida, committed securities fraud and wire fraud as part of a scheme to fraudulently induce individuals to invest in his wealth management business under false pretenses, including operating under an alias to hide his criminal past.
Chalk was arrested the same morning in Orlando on a criminal complaint and was presented before a magistrate judge in the Middle District of Florida, according to Strauss.
From in or about 2017 through in or about October 2020, Chalk sold clients an equity stake in a purported fund that would supposedly invest in companies to generate returns, but he did not invest the money as promised, the complaint alleged.
The funds instead were apparently "used largely to make a combination of personal and business expenses," according to the complaint. Those expenses allegedly included: about $1.7 million to pay bills for personal credit cards; a recurring payment totaling about $17,000 to an NBA basketball organization that "appears to be for season ticket payments"; "transfers of substantial amounts of money to an incarcerated prison inmate" (about $22,600); "large purchases" from a jewelry retailer (about $30,000); and "what appear to be car payments to a BMW luxury car dealer" (about $74,000), the complaint claimed.
