U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Litigation Release No. 20815 / November 20, 2008
United States of America v. Jack A. Calvin, 07-03002-01-CR-S-RED (W.D.Mo.)
Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jack Calvin, et al., 03-10586-(MEL) (D. Mass.)
Defendant in SEC Enforcement Action Sentenced to Over 16 Years in Prison on Related Criminal Charges for Defrauding Investors in a Prime Bank Scheme
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that on November 18, 2008, the federal court in the Western District of Missouri sentenced Jack A. Calvin, of Ozark, Missouri, on criminal charges relating to his operation of a "Prime Bank" securities fraud scheme. The sentence ordered Calvin to serve 200 months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, and to pay restitution in the amount of $2,083,736.41 and a mandatory special assessment of $100.
Calvin was criminally indicted on January 24, 2007 by a federal grand jury convened by the United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri. The three-count indictment alleged, among other things, that between January 1999 and March 2002, Calvin defrauded approximately 115 investors of more than $2.8 million by offering and selling securities in a purported trading program called Growth Benefit Systems (GBS) that was completely fictitious. The indictment also alleged that Calvin solicited investors by, among other things, telling them that their funds would be pooled to purchase "Prime Bank" instruments that would be traded by top-rated banks and promising returns as high as 20% per month. In fact, according to the indictment, the GBS trading program never existed and Calvin's representations to investors were therefore false. On November 14, 2007, Calvin entered a guilty plea to one count of securities fraud.
The Commission had previously filed a civil injunctive action against Calvin on March 31, 2003 in the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts alleging many of the same facts charged in the criminal action. On December 3, 2003, the Commission obtained a default judgment against Calvin finding him liable for securities fraud and ordering him to pay a total of $6,114,283.
The criminal case was prosecuted by Commission attorneys Silvestre Fontes and Louis Randazzo who were appointed Special Assistant U.S. Attorneys by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Missouri.
For further information, see Litigation Release Nos. 18056 (March 31, 2003), 18544 (January 15, 2004), 19974 (January 19, 2007) and 20108 (May 10, 2007).