On Friday, February 8, 2013, a federal jury in Charlotte convicted certified public accountant Jonathan D. Davey, 48, of Newark, Ohio of four criminal charges relating to an investment fraud conspiracy, announced Anne M. Tompkins, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina.
The federal indictment, returned in February 2012, charged Davey with serving as the “Administrator” for numerous hedge funds for the Black Diamond Ponzi Scheme, with soliciting over $11 million from victims with his own hedge fund, “Divine Circulation Services,” and with tax evasion. The charges arise out of the Black Diamond investigation, which has brought criminal charges against eleven individuals and CommunityONE Bank, relating to conduct between October 2007 and April 2007 that deprived over 400 victims of more than $40 million.
U.S. Attorney Tompkins is joined in making today’s announcement by Roger A. Coe, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Charlotte Division, and Jeannine A. Hammett, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation Division (IRS-CI).
According to evidence presented at trial, Davey lied to collect over $11 million from victims mainly in North Carolina, Virginia, and Ohio for his hedge fund by claiming, among other things, that he had done due diligence on Black Diamond and was operating a legitimate hedge fund with significant safeguards, when, in reality, neither claim was true. Then, as Black Diamond began to collapse, Davey and other hedge fund managers started a derivative Ponzi scheme using a so-called “cash account” that Davey controlled. Davey and his co-conspirators collected over $5 million from new victim investors for the cash account, and used the new victim money to make Ponzi payments to old investors and themselves. The evidence at trial showed that, as Administrator for the scheme, Davey controlled most funds and wires for the scheme, and published a website for victims that reflected false returns. At trial, the Government showed that by the end of the scheme, the website reflected over $120 million in supposed value for victim-accounts when Davey and the hedge fund managers in reality had less than $1 million total in their accounts.
According to evidence presented at trial, Davey used an elaborate network of shell companies to evade taxes and commit money laundering with the proceeds of the Ponzi scheme. In particular, Davey used an offshore shell company in Belize to funnel money to build a mansion in Ohio, creating a sham “loan” by pretending that investors had “loaned” investment money to the Belizean shell company that was then used to build Davey’s personal mansion…
On April 27, 2011, a criminal bill of information and a Deferred Prosecution Agreement were filed against CommunityONE Bank, N.A., related to its failure to file a suspicious activity report (SAR) and maintain an effective anti-money laundering program. As court records show, Simmons was a customer of CommunityONE, and used various accounts with the Bank in furtherance of the Ponzi scheme. However, according to filed court documents, the Bank did not file any suspicious activity reports on Simmons, despite the hundreds of suspicious transactions that took place in his accounts. The Bank agreed to pay $400,000 toward restitution to victims of the Ponzi scheme that operated through accounts maintained at the bank.
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