{"id":54556,"date":"2023-10-31T15:37:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-31T22:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=54556"},"modified":"2023-10-31T18:16:56","modified_gmt":"2023-11-01T01:16:56","slug":"businessman-sentenced-to-more-than-5-years-in-prison-for-scamming-investor-out-of-nearly-6-2-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=54556","title":{"rendered":"Businessman Sentenced to More Than 5 Years in Prison for Scamming Investor Out of Nearly $6.2 Million"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0LOS ANGELES<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"The owner of an Orange County real estate finance business was sentenced Monday to five years and three months in federal prison for fraudulently obtaining nearly $6.2 million, officials stated.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jacques Poujade took the money by making false promises to an investor that shares of his private company were about to be publicly traded on the Nasdaq stock exchange.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 U.S. District Judge Mark C. Scarsi sentenced Poujade, 63, of Irvine and ordered him to pay $6.1 million in restitution.<\/span><\/p>\n

Poujade pleaded guilty on July 24 to one count of securities fraud.<\/span><\/p>\n

Poujade is the owner and chief financial officer of Tri-Emerald Financial Group, a Lake Forest-based realty services company that operated as a residential mortgage lender. <\/span><\/p>\n

Tri-Emerald funded loans as a mortgage banker, intending to hold the funded loans for immediate resale to financial institutions that purchased the loans for investments. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Neither Tri-Emerald nor its securities were ever registered with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.<\/span><\/p>\n

From February 2015 to May 2020, Poujade sold unregistered securities to a victim investor by telling the victim a series of lies, including about the timing and likelihood of Tri-Emerald\u2019s initial public offering (IPO) and the resulting share price. <\/span><\/p>\n

The victim purchased shares in Tri-Emerald at $10 per share after Poujade represented they were \u201csecurities\u201d under federal law and would exceed the price of $100 per share once the company went public.<\/span><\/p>\n

Poujade falsely promised the victim that Tri-Emerald was a pre-IPO opportunity to provide high returns when the company soon went public on Nasdaq. <\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, Tri-Emerald had not completed the necessary steps to undertake an IPO, including filling out the required SEC paperwork or formally engaging the investment banks.<\/span><\/p>\n

Poujade falsely told the victim he had engaged as an underwriter.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"aHe further lied to the victim by saying one investment bank \u201cwas super excited about moving forward\u201d. He estimated that Tri-Emerald would \u201cbe a billion-dollar company in under 16 months,\u201d according to his plea agreement.<\/span><\/p>\n

He also said Tri-Emerald was using the victim\u2019s investment to cover IPO costs when, in fact, Poujade used a substantial portion of the funds for general Tri-Emerald operating expenses and to make lulling payments and litigation settlement payments to previous Tri-Emerald investors. Poujade also used a portion of the funds for personal expenditures instead of taking a salary.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Particularly troubling is that in executing his scheme to defraud, [Poujade] ruthlessly preyed upon [the victim] to drain her of her entire life savings,\u201d prosecutors argued in a sentencing memorandum. \u201c[Poujade] not only conned [the victim] out of her money, but he did so by betraying her trust after forging an intimate and faith-based relationship with her.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In total, Poujade fraudulently obtained approximately $5,255,600 from the victim.<\/span><\/p>\n

Poujade also defrauded another victim and that victim\u2019s investment group in July 2016 by convincing them to purchase 30-day promissory notes issued by LendPlus Holdings, another one of Poujade\u2019s companies. <\/span><\/p>\n

These notes purportedly were to be used to increase Tri-Emerald\u2019s warehouse line of credit, which would allow Tri-Emerald to fund a larger volume of mortgages.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the end of the 30-day promissory notes, instead of repaying victim investors, Poujade continuously rolled victim investors\u2019 funds over into the next month. <\/span><\/p>\n

On numerous occasions, Poujade lulled the victims by falsely claiming their money was safe in a reserve account, and LendPlus was using their funds to improve Tri-Emerald\u2019s loan production and line of credit.<\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, Poujade used a substantial portion of these funds to make lulling payments to previous Tri-Emerald investors, to pay Tri-Emerald\u2019s operating expenses, and for his personal use, including paying rent on his residence.<\/span><\/p>\n

Poujade defrauded these investors out of approximately $915,000.<\/span><\/p>\n

The FBI and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Inspector General investigated this matter.<\/span><\/p>\n

Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan G. Adams of the Corporate and Securities Fraud Strike Force prosecuted this case.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0LOS ANGELES The owner of an Orange County real estate finance business was sentenced Monday to five years and three months in federal prison for fraudulently obtaining nearly $6.2 million, officials stated….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":54557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3255],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-federal-court"],"yoast_head":"\nBusinessman Sentenced to More Than 5 Years in Prison for Scamming Investor Out of Nearly $6.2 Million<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0LOS ANGELES The owner of an Orange County real estate finance business was sentenced Monday to five years and three months in federal prison\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=54556\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Businessman Sentenced to More Than 5 Years in Prison for Scamming Investor Out of Nearly $6.2 Million\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0LOS ANGELES The owner of an Orange County real estate finance business was sentenced Monday to five years and three months in federal prison\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=54556\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"American Justice Notebook\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AmericanJusticeNotebook\" \/>\n<meta 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