FX fraudster Brett Hartshorn agrees to pay $890,000 in restitution

A couple of months after the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said it had reached a settlement in principle with Brett G. Hartshorn, who is charged with Forex fraud, the regulator has filed a proposed consent judgment with the New York Southern District Court.

The document, submitted at the Court on May 12^th and seen by FinanceFeeds, directs Hartshorn to pay restitution of $890,000.

Under the proposed settlement, Hartshorn is permanently restrained, enjoined and prohibited from defrauding other persons. He is also prohibited from acting as an unregistered CTA, entering into transactions involving commodity interests, having any commodity interests traded on his behalf, applying for registration with the CFTC, as well as acting as an employee of an entity registered with the Commission.

Let’s recall that the CFTC has found that from at least June 18, 2008 to in or around 2014 Hartshorn fraudulently solicited at least 13 individuals including members of his church and individuals he met in his local community, to invest in off-exchange foreign currency on a leveraged, margined, or financed basis and to give Hartshorn discretionary authority to trade forex on their behalf.

Hartshorn is accused of fraud in connection with retail Forex transactions, failure to register as a CTA and failure to comply with relevant CTA requirements.

He often resorted to emotional pleas with the Court, claiming that he “is lost” but that he can still “make a positive difference in this world”.

These emotional claims, however, did not have any particular impact on the Court’s rulings. In September 2018, Judge Andrew L. Carter of the New York Southern District Court signed an order denying the Motion to Dismiss by Hartshorn. In November 2018, the CFTC obtained a certificate of default against the defendant.

Thanks to the proposed consent order, the case is now close to a resolution.