U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Litigation Release No. 20070 / April 5, 2007
SEC v. Albert E. Parish, Jr., Parish Economics LLC and Summerville Hard Assets LLC, Civil Action No. 2:07-cv-00919-DCN (D. S. C., April 5, 2007)
The Securities and Exchange Commission (Commission) announced today that it has filed a complaint seeking emergency relief in the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina against a Summerville SC promoter and two entities controlled by him. The Commission charged that Albert E. Parish, Jr. (Parish) and Parish Economics LLC (Parish Economics), have been fraudulently operating five investment funds.
The Commission alleges that the funds commenced operations at various times since 1986. The funds have been managed by Parish Economics or by Parish. Four of the funds were described as "informal pools of money" through which investors could invest in, respectively, commodities and securities futures products (the Futures Pool), bonds (the Hedged Income Pool), stocks (the Stock Pool), and hard assets such as expensive watches, jewelry and fine art (Hard Asset Pool). The fifth fund is defendant Summerville Hard Assets LLC (Summerville). Summerville also purported to invest in various hard assets such as jewelry and collectibles. The Commission alleged that the defendants provided statements to investors and placed information on the Parish Economics website representing that the funds had been trading profitably and that the funds collectively held $134 million in assets. In fact, brokerage accounts represented to hold millions of dollars of assets for the funds do not hold significant funds.
The Complaint alleges that the defendants have violated Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder, and that defendants Parish and Parish Economics have violated Sections 206(1) and 206(2) of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940.
The Court subsequently entered an order freezing the defendants' assets, appointing a receiver for the defendants, imposing a temporary restraining order against the defendants enjoining future violations of the antifraud provision of the federal securities laws, and providing other relief.
