WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) - A South Carolina federal court has entered two orders requested by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
They are the result of a CFTC complaint filed on Nov. 8, 2010, that charged the defendants with operating a foreign currency exchange Ponzi scheme.
One order requires defendant Ronald E. Satterfield, of Charleston, S.C., to pay $957,146 of restitution and a $2,871,438 civil monetary penalty. The other order requires defendant Nicholas Bos of Ludington, Mich., to pay $849,146 of restitution and a $2,547,438 civil monetary penalty.
According to the announcement, the Satterfield order, entered on May 9, alleges that he fraudulently solicited customers by claiming clients would receive monthly returns on investment of two to four percent from his forex trading.
The order also states that Satterfield issued false account statements. These statements indicated the promised returns when, in fact, a large amount of customer deposits were used to pay purported returns to other customers, rather than to trade forex, it was alleged. Satterfield's actual foreign exchange trading, according to the order, resulted in losses in almost every month.
The Bos order, entered on April 25, alleges that he fraudulently solicited customers to trade forex through Satterfield-managed accounts. The order also finds that Bos misled customers to think that there would be no risk to their deposits.
He also allegedly failed to disclose that he was collecting commissions and fees paid from customer funds. Ultimately, Bos misappropriated $295,000 in customer funds to purchase a house in Ludington, Mich., titled in his name and in that of his wife, it was alleged.