The Securities and Exchange Commission has ordered an investment advisor to pay $1.2 million for fraudulently raising about $3.2 million from almost two dozen investors for a pooled investment fund of which she is the sole owner.
In a complaint filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, the SEC alleged that from August 2018 through January 2021, Ann M. Vick, 59, of Mead, Colorado, represented herself to investors as a consistently successful options trader and promised them huge investment returns. In addition to serving as owner of AMV Investments, she owns a chain of restaurants in Colorado, according to the complaint.
Vick's options trading, however, resulted in a volatile mix of gains and losses, and she never generated the consistent profits needed to pay investors the returns she promised them, the SEC alleged.
After suffering significant trading losses in early 2020, Vick started making "Ponzi-like" payments to investors and misappropriated about $570,150 of investor funds, the SEC alleged.
"Vick engaged in several fraudulent and deceptive acts that operated as a fraud and deceit on investors," the complaint stated. "In addition to false and misleading representations," she "acted knowingly or recklessly, and negligently, in engaging in the fraudulent and deceptive conduct," the complaint alleged.
