shares” in Facebook, Groupon, Twitter, Zynga and other companies. Using LinkedIn advertisements that offered customers “the opportunity to buy pre-I.P.O. Mattera allegedly enlisted the help of Joseph Almazon, an unregistered broker with Spartan Capital Partners on Long Island, who solicited investments for Mr. Groupon, the daily deals site, jumped more than 30 percent on its first day of trading. Mattera come as investors clamor for shares of newly public Internet companies, a frenzy that echoes the early days of the last dot-com boom in the 1990s. Mattera’s lawyer in the criminal case, declined to comment. “With today’s charges, his charade is exposed and he will be held to account for his alleged crimes.”Ĭarl F. Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, said in a statement. “As alleged, John Mattera duped investors into believing they had bought rights to shares of coveted stock in Facebook and other highly visible and attractive companies which had not yet gone public,” The Securities andĮxchange Commission is also taking civil action against Mr. Mattera with one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and wire fraud, one count of securities fraud, one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering. Services, more than $11,000 for tailored clothing and more than $17,000 for “boat-related expenses.” Mattera’s expenses: more than $245,000 for home furnishings and interior design Mattera used millions of dollars of investor money to finance his lavish lifestyle, the complaint alleges. Prosecutors allege the fund didn’t have such investments. That those holdings, bought on the private markets, would surge in value after the companies went public, the complaint said. Mattera, the head of the Praetorian Global Fund, claimed to own more than a million shares each of Facebook and Groupon, according to a complaint filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan. Mattera, 50, a Florida-based investment manager, was arrested Thursday on charges of running an $11 million, two-year fraud that falsely promised investors access to coveted shares of Groupon, Facebook and other Mattera was arrested in Florida on Thursday.
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