The SEC formally barred former Woodbridge Group of Companies sales manager and iAlt Enhanced Income Portfolio principal Ivan Acevedo of Los Angeles, CA after a criminal guilty plea to a count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud in the furtherance of the massive, widespread $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme at Woodbridge. Acevedo is currently in federal custody.
In December 2021, Acevedo and fellow implicated Woodbridge executive Dane Roseman who both worked for Woodbridge CEO Roberto Shapiro of Sherman Oaks, California (himself serving a 25-year prison sentence for running the Woodbridge fraud) settled with the SEC for $3.75 million after allegations of improper sales of the Woodbridge securities as "low-risk, safe simple and conservative" investments when they were actually part of a high-risk Ponzi scheme.
In barring Acevedo from the securities industry, the SEC identified Woodbridge principal Robert Shapiro as ringleader of the fraudulent scheme, noting that Acevedo materially misrepresented Woodbridge's securities products in the furtherance of their unsuitable sales.
In the years since Shapiro's indictment for fraud, regulators have charged Woodbridge co-conspirators such as Acevedo in helping facilitate or perpetuate the fraudulent Ponzi scheme. For example, FINRA in 2019 barred ex-Signator Investors broker Dee Dee Brooks for selling unapproved Woodbridge Group of Companies and Future Income Payments promissory notes; FINRA similarly barred Signator ex-broker David Ferwerda during its Woodbridge investigation.
Other brokerage firms implicated in the nationwide Ponzi scheme that victimized more than 8,400 senior citizens include Independent Financial Group and Whitehall-Parker Securities (broker James Marten Lamont), Mutual Securities (broker Gary Lyle Pevey), and Quest Capital Strategies (broker Frank Roland Dietrich), to name a few of the California firms named in regulatory documents.
If you invested with a FINRA or SEC member firm in the Woodbridge Group of Companies and such an investment proved harmful when the Ponzi scheme inevitably resulted in losses due to misrepresentation or outright conversion of your funds, please call an experienced FINRA arbitration attorney at The Law Offices of Jonathan W. Evans & Associates at (800) 699-1881 for an investigation and consultation.