Seattle Man Faces $1M Fine

From Seattlepi.com:

A Port Orchard man was convicted Thursday in U.S. District Court on 27 counts including securities fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering.
Charles Nolon Bush, 69, operated various investment entities and accepted more than $35 million in investor funds. He promised high yield investments, but used investor money to fund a lavish lifestyle and pay previous investors in the form of a Ponzi scheme.
Bush fled to Poland, where he was arrested in August 2007. He made his initial appearance in U.S. District Court in February.
To lend legitimacy to the investment scheme, federal prosecutors showed he conducted business from a mansion on a private golf course and from a Safeco Field luxury suite.
Wire Fraud, Mail Fraud, Securities Fraud and Money Laundering are punishable by up to 20 years in prison and a $1,000,000 fine.
Bush's sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 6, 2009 in Seattle.

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US Trustee Program Requests Authorization to Investigate SemGroup

The Office of the United States Trustee program, a section of the Justice Department, has requested authorization to look into SemGroup’s bankruptcy filing on the basis that fraudulent trading could have caused the collapse of the company. As reported in this article from Reuters, SemGroup, had filed bankruptcy on July 22^nd claiming a $3.2 billion loss on energy futures and derivatives trades. In an official document Roberta DeAngelis, from the US Trustees office stated:

"The dearth of information available regarding the trading strategy and its impact upon the value of the debtor's businesses has caused significant unrest and concern among the debtor's customers, suppliers, lenders and investors"

The official word from SemGroup is that they are willing to cooperate completely with the investigation. This, however, is not the only investigation that is underway for the company. Federal Investigators are already checking into the matter of whether or not proper disclosure was made to investors regarding liquidity issues of the subsidiary group SemGroup Energy Partners LP.

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