The Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday charged a Tennessee-based investment advisor with securities fraud related to the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
The SEC alleged that Gordon B. Grigg and his firm ProTrust Management, based in Nashville, Tenn., defrauded clients “out of at least $6.5 million” and “misrepresented that their money was invested in the federal government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program [TARP] and other securities that, in reality, do not exist.”
The SEC also alleged that Grigg had funds from at least 27 clients obtained since 2007, and that he claimed to be a financial planner and investment advisor, but that neither he nor his firm were registered with the SEC or a state regulator.
For the latest TARP news, check out FOXBusiness.com’s Where’s My Money blog.
Grigg, according to the SEC, created fraudulent account statements reflecting his clients’ ownership of “private placements” that didn’t actually exist; then, that he in December began to claim that his firm “had the ability to invest client funds in government-guaranteed commercial paper and bank debt as part of the TARP program.”
“There is in fact no program in which investors can buy debt guaranteed by the TARP program,” Katherine Addleman of the SEC’s Atlanta regional office said in the press release.
Judge William J. Haynes Jr., a U.S. District Judge for the Middle District of Tennessee, Nashville Division, ordered that the defendants’ assets be frozen and enjoined them from further violations.
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