A Copley man was sentenced to nearly five years in prison for operating a fraudulent investment scheme which caused investors to lose nearly $1.8 million, said Steven M. Dettelbach, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio.
Anthony Davian, 35, pleaded guilty earlier this year to one count of securities fraud, two counts of mail fraud, four counts of wire fraud, and seven counts of money laundering. He was sentenced to 57 months in prison and ordered to pay $1,787,679 in restitution, as well as forfeiting property.
“This defendant deceived clients to line his own pockets," Dettelbach said. “We will continue to aggressively pursue cases in which investors are cheated out of their savings."
Davian used his hedge fund, Davian Capital Advisers, LLC, to promote and sell securities to at least 20 investors across several states between Between 2008 and 2013, resulting in $1.8 million in overall investor loss, according to court documents.
Davian purported to sell securities in the form of shares in the various funds he created and controlled, including Davian Capital, Rubber City Gravity, Rubber City Pure Alpha, Cleveland Precious Metals Fund, and others. Instead, he used the investors’ monies to redeem earlier investors, enrich himself and pay off personal expenses, such as the purchase of an Audi Q7 Prestige, according to court documents.
The investigation revealed that Davian cajoled investors’ into giving him hundreds of thousands of dollars by claiming to manage hundreds of millions of dollars to make himself appear more sophisticated than he really was and by falsifying client account statements, according to court documents.
This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Christos N. Georgalis, Matthew Cronin and James Morford following an investigation by agents of the United States Secret Service, the Internal Revenue Service and the United States Postal Service.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
