When the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission started a usual investment check of Battery Wealth Management, there was no information found on the investments of Al Parish – the part-owner and vice president of the company. The hidden business activities of Parish were discovered in February 2007. Now, according to a civil case initiated by SEC on April 5 2007, Al Parish is accused of security fraud; he could be responsible for the disappearance of US $134 million. Steve Grimaldi, Supervisory Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, confirmed there could be several criminal charges including mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy.
The investigators who were tracking Al Parish’s finances say the missing amount of money could be located in an offshore account in the British Virgin Islands. His passport confirms that the popular economist traveled to the BVI.
Currently Parish is charged of lying and providing false documentation to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Last week, at a federal court hearing, a chart was sketched to illustrate how investors’ money could go into several different ‘buckets’, including real estate, lifestyle and hard assets. Those amounts are only part of the hundreds of millions of dollars that were claimed to be in Parish’s investment accounts.
Parish and two of his companies, Parish Economics LLC and Summerville Hard Assets LLC have invested on behalf of at least 300 individuals and business entities. The suit filed by SEC in the US District Court of South Carolina alleges that Parish provided fraudulent statements to his investors, saying that the investments in his four managed accounts were growing and totaled more than $314 million, while in reality those accounts held less than $230,000 total.
The SEC’s complaint includes the specific allegations that at least since January 2005 Parish provided investors with quarterly statements which showed the wrong picture of the investors’ returns and assets, and misrepresented the rate of return of investment vehicles. It is asserted in the court documents that his wife instructed their administrative assistant to begin transferring cash into the names of family members.
David Dantzler, an attorney with Hays Financial Consulting, said that Parish’s assets would be moved to a storage facility pending the outcome of the civil complaints. When the investigation is complete, whatever case is built against Parish or his wife will be presented to a grand jury, which will decide whether criminal charges are to be brought.