Robert A. Loffredi, et al
U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Litigation Release No. 20343 / October 23, 2007
SEC v. Robert A. Loffredi, et al, Case No. 07 C 5927 (N. D. Ill., filed October 19, 2007)
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that on October 19, 2007, the Honorable Suzanne B. Conlon of the United Stated District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division issued a Temporary Restraining Order and Asset Freeze against Robert A. Loffredi (Loffredi) and Raymond Financial Group, Inc. (Raymond Financial). The Order, among other things, temporarily enjoined Loffredi and Raymond Financial from violating Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 (Securities Act), Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (Exchange Act) and Rule 10b-5 thereunder and froze their assets. The Court also entered an agreed order freezing the assets of Advanced Sales and Marketing Corporation (Advanced Sales), a company owned by Loffredi's wife.
The Commission's civil injunctive action, filed earlier that same day, alleges that Defendants Loffredi and Raymond Financial violated the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws. According to the allegations in the Commission's complaint, from at least August 2003 to the present, Loffredi, a registered representative and the President of Raymond Financial, raised at least $2.8 million from at least fourteen customers by falsely representing that he would invest their funds in securities, primarily in the form of purported certificates of deposit (CDs). Instead of using the customers' money to purchase securities, Loffredi used the customers' funds to pay his personal and business expenses, to make payments to relief defendant Advanced Sales, to make payments to other customers who had invested in fictitious securities, and on at least one occasion to make payments on behalf of his wife, Karen Loffredi, a relief defendant. The Commission further alleges that Loffredi prepared and gave customers Raymond Financial account statements which falsely represented that customers owned CDs and other securities, and he also sent them false IRS Forms 1099.
In addition to the emergency relief already obtained, the Complaint seeks preliminary and permanent injunctions against Loffredi and Raymond Financial. The Complaint also seeks disgorgement of ill-gotten gains from Loffredi, Raymond Financial, Advanced Sales and Karen Loffredi, and the imposition of civil penalties against Loffredi and Raymond Financial.
