In early 2015, the Chester County couple were featured in a suburban newspaper touting Vagnozzis acumen. Since 2019, Vagnozzi agreed to pay more than $1 million to settle civil actions brought by securities regulators over three separate investments Vagnozzi said Pauciulo had advised him on. One investor told The Inquirer he put in his $50,000 at Vagnozzi's urging in February 2015 . Now LaForte, 50, and his wife, Lisa McElhone, 42 the owner of a nail salon from South Philadelphia who told the court at one point that she was worth nearly $800 million "shall pay disgorgement of ill-gotten gains," as will Vagnozzi, 53, according to settlement papers signed by all three. It filed a sweeping civil fraud case against Vagnozzi and others over one of Vagnozzis most popular investments, a Philadelphia lender to small business known as Par Funding. Investors have the ability to move certain assets in order to create a financially beneficial environment for their retirement. They were already struggling. Then they were hit by cash lenders The businesses who received these advances were forced to close and could no longer keep up their payments to Par Funding, creating a chain reaction through A Better Financial Plan causing their investors to not receive their monthly payments. A receivers purpose is to, administer and manage their [companies under receivership] business affairs, funds, assets, causes of action and any other property of the Companies; marshal and safeguard all of the Companies assets; and take whatever actions are necessary for the protection of investors, according to Document 4, filed on July 24, 2020 in the United States District Court of the Southern District of Florida. Earlier this year, shortly before the SEC sued Vagnozzi over Par Funding, the agency filed another civil action about his work lining up $33 million in investments in buying life-insurance policies from the elderly. My impeccable credit score was destroyed. His million-dollar-plus yearly income fell to zero.. Brian is broke, his Houston lawyer, Brent Perry, said last week. In the 2020 emails obtained by The Inquirer, Vagnozzi acknowledged a simple problem with funds containing those early policies: Sellers hadnt died fast enough. Gerald J Nave. Edit Details Dean James Vagnozzi Reviews. If he gets a significant judgment from Eckert, well go after that, Lechtzin said. News | Edelson Lechtzin LLP | Philadelphia PA Three days after the settlement, Vagnozzi wrote investors "all they can say is they dont like my advertising methods and the fact that I served steak dinners in 2013 as a way for people to hear about our investments., To the SEC attorneys, Vagnozzi described typical investors as people who have several hundred thousand dollars and there is a piece of that money, say, $50,000 to $100,000, that they dont need for four to eight years. He added: The overwhelming majority of people come in because theyre scared of a market connection., In one flier obtained by the SEC, he summed up his offer this way: How to safely earn 8 to 12 percent in an investment not offered by any stock broker or banker.. Silver Law Group continues to investigate Dean Vagnozzi, Par Funding, A Better Financial Plan, and others on behalf of investors in what the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) says was a $500 million "web of unregistered, fraudulent securities offerings.". We have been working together since 2004, Vagnozzi said in one of the friendly videos the pair made for prospective customers. As for Vagnozzi, he was once a ubiquitous presence on Philadelphia media, spending heavily on ads to urge people to put money into his alternatives to the stock markets. Dean Vagnozzi - President - Better Financial Plan | ZoomInfo Indeed, LaForte entered a guilty plea to mortgage fraud on Oct. 4, 2006. His required disclosures in the SEC lawsuit show that in just the last two years before the SEC pulled the plug, he made $8 million in profits on $17 million in revenue. Angelo Vagnozzi Obituary (2014) - Pennington, NJ - "The Times, Trenton," Dec 2019 - Present3 years 3 months. His payback: $31,000. The SEC has since said Vagnozzi was selling securities that should have been registered and didn't warn investors of the risks. The firm was in the "merchant cash business." Now lives at 3872 Jane Ct, Collegeville, PA 19426. Total. Eckert Looks To Stay Investment Adviser's Malpractice Suit The SEC's senior trial counsel in the case, Amie Riggle Berlin, declined to comment Wednesday as did Eric Bustillo, director of the SEC's Miami regional office. California residents do not sell my data request. 28 de mayo de 2018. By that date, Vagnozzi was already under receivership. A decade later, Sullivan says, the fund has paid back less than half the original investment. With his heavy radio advertising and free steak sales dinners, Vagnozzi, 51, whose offices are in King of Prussia, has touted alternatives to Wall Street for more than 15 years. In an email to an Inquirer reporter, Vagnozzi said some of the life-settlements investments have done very well recently, returning sizable gains. As of July 27, the SEC put in place a receiver, Ryan M. Stumphauzer who is currently running Par Funding and A Better Financial Plan. In his recent email exchange with The Inquirer, Vagnozzi said he did what he had reason to believe was right for investors. They also seized the Cessna 6800 corporate jet owned by McElhone, valued at $6 million. In April, Vagnozzi sued his longtime lawyer, John Pauciulo, of the Philadelphia firm of Eckert Seamans, blaming him for bad advice. James Allen, OMI. (Since he was no longer a licensed securities broker, he couldnt sell securities, in any event.). The records dont disclose the precise amount of the loan, designed to help businesses keep employees on staff during the pandemic.). Par Funding blamed the reductions on the onset of COVID-19, but court data showed that the firm had filed nearly 1,500 lawsuits against defaulting borrowers in 2019, before the virus surfaced. content for publishing on our website. The investors must pay the premiums to keep up the policies, but collect the full amount when the sellers pass on. He is, however, a licensed insurance salesman. Over the years, he has refined his unconventional investing approach in ways that extend well beyond the "cookie cutter" strategies employed at many firms. According to a document filed in response to the suit, Vagnozzi's businesses reported more than $8 million in profits between 2018 and 2020. Par and Vagnozzi blame its problems on the COVID virus, although the federal judge in the lawsuit has suggested Par was financially shaky before the pandemic. In 2012, the SEC followed up on the Journal article with a lawsuit accusing Life Partners of fraud and Pardo of covering up the inaccurate life estimates. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission says Vagnozzi and Par Funding misled investors about Par's financial soundness and the criminal past of a founder. Their relationship seemed to hold up even after the feds moved in. The lawsuit by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission names Par Funding, its owners, Vagnozzi, and others as defendants, saying that they misled investors about Pars high default rate and an owners criminal past as a grifter. The hope was to turn their money into at least $70,000, as the old people died on schedule. Vagnozzis father was a suburban police officer who became a lawyer and chair of the Upper Merion supervisors. what happened to dean vagnozzi - nutrir.cl But for his fund, Bennett said, that was the last big payout. Vagnozzi and Par say those allegations are false. Angelo Michael Vagnozzi PENNINGTON - Angelo Michael Vagnozzi, 81, of Pennington entered into God's loving care on Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2014, at Capital Health Hopewell, surrounded by his loving family, after a courageous 18-year battle against Alzheimer's disease. Even before the SEC lawsuit, Vagnozzi has agreed to pay $1.1 million since 2018 to resolve complaints from federal and state financial regulators about his sales techniques. He talked with pride about his unconventional investment strategies and bridled at any suggestion that he sought to solicit business a word he said he found sleazy. In his language, his dinner meetings with investors were client appreciation events., In email responses to questions for this article, Vagnozzi wrote: my staff and I are good, hard-working, ethical people.. They are Joseph Cole Barleta, 38, a Philadelphia man who was Par Funding's chief financial officer, and Michael Furman, 39, a Florida businessman who the SEC said raised $6 million for Par Funding. SEC drops the hammer on another one-time broker - InvestmentNews Vagnozzi said in a complaint last month that faulty legal advice he'd received from Pauciulo had left him open to claims from the SEC stemming from his work soliciting investors for the cash. Investors who refused were paid back in-part, or in-full and in late July 2020, Vagnozzi removed the remaining funds, which consisted of more than $500,000 in the MK Corporate Debt bank account and placed that money into his personal bank account this account and transfer was not disclosed in Vagnozzis July court filing per the receivers orders. is panama city beach a good place to live; Original review: March 7, 2022. Then, one day in early 2020, he learned that Par Funding couldnt make payments to investors. After a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission in July revealed he was selling millions in unregistered securities to clients who were not wealthy enough to buy them under industry rules, his customers are probably calling Vagnozzi and . Pars business model was to take in money from investors, pay them up to a generous 14% a year in interest, and to loan the money via cash advances to small merchants, charging them whopping rates of 50% or more. The headline read: Montgomery County investors double their money sooner than expected. The photo showed the smiling couple and Vagnozzi holding a giant mock check. In early 2020, he had a more downbeat financial message. Pauciulo and his lawyer didnt return calls seeking comment. Vagnozzi also raised almost $5 million for the addiction-related software idea of a man who went by the name of Henry Ford, according to the SEC. We didnt have sales meetings, Amie, he told SEC trial counsel Amie Riggle Berlin earlier this year. Jobs Pardo quit. Update on A Better Financial Plan - Par Funding Receivership A third, filed by Philadelphia lawyer Clifford Haines on behalf of 17 people who set up pools that pumped nearly $50 million into Par, names just Pauciulo and his firm. Of that, according to documents in the case, Par Funding paid them back about $230 million over the years. In a court response this month to Vagnozzis suit, Pauciulo hit back at his former client. Stumphauzer also took control of art worth $2 million and a stable of luxury cars and boats from LaForte and McElhone. On October 31, 2020, Judge Ruiz of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida entered an order releasing from the Receivership certain entities owned or controlled by Defendant Dean Vagnozzi. I literally had only the money in my pocket, he wrote, referring to the period after the SEC brought its suit. iai.tv news RSS feed He offers a wide range of unique advice to his clients: avoiding the company's 401k, not rushing to pay off your mortgage, and foregoing an IRA, among the other recommendations he turns upside down. The order is listed as "DE 360." Vagnozzis account is different from what he said in court in Florida. Never., Vagnozzi summed it up this way: He was the amateur relying on the professional, just like I am at the mercy of my auto mechanic when it comes to fixing my car..