U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Litigation Release No. 21801 / January 7, 2011
Securities and Exchange Commission v. Raymond P. Morris, E&R Holdings, LLC, Wise Financial Holdings, LLC, Momentum Leasing, LLC, James L. Haley, Cornerstone Capital Fund, LLC, Vantage Point Capital, LLC, Jay J. Linford, Freedom group, LLC, and Luc D. Nguyen, Civil No. 2:11-cv-00021-BSJ (USDC Utah, filed January 6, 2011)
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced the filing of a complaint in federal district court against Raymond P. Morris (Morris), James L. Haley (Haley), Jay J. Lindford (Lindford), attorney Luc D. Nguyen (Nguyen), E&R Holdings, LLC (E&R Holdings), Wise Financial Holdings, LLC (Wise Financial), Momentum Leasing, LLC (Momentum), Cornerstone Capital Fund, LLC (Cornerstone), Vantage Point Capital, LLC (Vantage Point) and Freedom Group, LLC (Freedom Group), alleging unregistered fraudulent offers, sales and purchases of securities that bilked at least 90 investors out of no less than $60 million.
The complaint alleges that from at least March 2007 through January 2009, Morris, through his entities E&R Holdings, Wise Financial and Momentum, offered and sold unregistered promissory notes to investors and in doing so made misrepresentations and omissions designed to convince investors that they were purchasing high yield notes that were risk free. Morris told investors that their funds would be deposited into a secure account and would be used only to verify deposits. Instead of using the funds as represented Morris used investor funds to support his extravagant lifestyle and to make Ponzi payments to certain investors.
The complaint further alleges that Haley, Linford and Nguyen assisted Morris in the fraud, soliciting funds from investors through misrepresentations, recklessly repeating Morris' misrepresentations.
The Commission's complaint charges Morris, Haley, Lindford, Nguyen, E&R Holdings, Wise Financial, Momentum, Cornerstone, Vantage Point and Freedom Group with violations of Sections 5(a), 5(c) and 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (Exchange Act) and Rule 10b-5 thereunder. The complaint also charges Morris, Haley and Nguyen with violates of Section 15(a) of the Exchange Act. The complaint seeks an injunction, disgorgement and civil penalties.
The Commission acknowledges the assistance of the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Utah, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Utah County Attorney's Office in this matter.