SEC secures lifting of stay in action against co-conspirator of Ponzi scammer Renwick Haddow
The stay in the civil action taken by the regulator against James Moore has been lifted.
The civil action launched by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against James Bernard Moore, one of the alleged co-conspirators of Ponzi scammer Renwick Haddow, is finally set to budge, as the Court has agreed to lift the stay in this lawsuit.
On October 21, 2019, Judge Lorna G. Schofield of the New York Southern District Court granted the SEC’s motion to lift the stay in the action against Moore. Counsel for all parties will have to appear for an initial pretrial conference with the Court on December 2, 2019.
Let’s recall that, according to the SEC’s Complaint, from approximately mid-2015 through May 2016, Moore and Voicetech, a company Moore controlled with his wife, recruited a network of sales agents to sell fraudulent investments to investors and served as the sales agents’ liaison to the entities offering the fraudulent investments.
The defendants arranged for the sales agent network to sell the investments by using the offering entities’ false and misleading offering materials. Inter alia, the materials touted the background of a chief executive officer, who in fact did not exist as Moore knew, and at the same time intentionally omitted any mention of Renwick Haddow, the real person controlling the entities, because, also as Moore knew, Haddow had been sued by a United Kingdom regulator for a prior scheme involving African land.
The network of sales agents recruited by Moore and Voicetech raised over $5 million from at least 100 investors for the fraudulent investments. In return for their role in selling the fraudulent investments, the defendants received commissions that totaled at least $1.4 million from the entities offering the investments.
The SEC’s action had been stayed in light of ongoing criminal proceedings against Moore.
In the Letter filed with the Court on Friday, October 4, 2019, the Commission asked the Court to lift the stay now and allow discovery to proceed, including the Commission’s deposition of Moore. Although no judgment of conviction has yet been entered in the Criminal Case, the SEC argued that it is appropriate for the Court to lift the stay in the civil action now so that the Commission may proceed with discovery.
