​Marin Investor Charged In $330M Ponzi Scheme: Report

MARIN COUNTY, CA — A Marin man and the investment firm he owns are facing federal civil charges in connection with a $330 million Ponzi scheme, The North Bay Business Journal reports.

Richard Dow Rockwell, and his eponymous investment firm of which he’s the sole investor, were charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on April 1 for allegedly soliciting more than 1,200 investors in the scheme, according to the report.

The SEC on April 1 charged Rockwell and Dow Rockwell LLC with violating the securities registration provisions of the Securities Act of 1933, the broker-dealer registration provisions of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and sections of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940.

The complaint seeks civil penalties and the return of ill-gotten gains with prejudgment interest, the SEC said in a statement.

Rockwell is accused of raising approximately $8 million for Professional Financial Investors (PFI), a Novato-based firm formerly led by CEO Lewis Wallach, who pleaded guilty in December to federal wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud charges, the report said.

The complaint against Rockwell and his firm, Dow Rockwell LLC, alleges he earned approximately $400,000 in referral fees from PFI for soliciting and recommending PFI investments to clients and failed to disclose the compensation, the SEC said in news releases announcing the charges against Rockwell.

The complaint also alleges that Dow Rockwell and his company failed to disclose Wallach’s past criminal conviction, and that at the time his firm offered and sold PFI securities, neither he nor his firm were registered as a broker-dealer with the SEC or associated with a broker-dealer.

Read more in The North Bay Business Journal