The Monetary Trade Regulatory Authority has barred a former Edward Jones dealer who had ties to a hashish firm shut down by the Securities and Change Fee for alleged fraud, together with the operation of a Ponzi-like scheme.
Alexandria Porter Bovee, who makes use of a number of aliases, together with Aia Montgomery and Alexandria Jo-Marie Porter, consented to the bar fairly than take part in a Finra investigation into whether or not she violated the regulator’s guidelines or federal securities legal guidelines in reference to the supply or sale of securities within the firm, Built-in Nationwide Assets (INR), which does enterprise as WeedGenics. She didn’t admit or deny the findings, the SEC famous.
Bovee, 37, a resident of Las Vegas or Dalzell, S.C., in keeping with the SEC grievance, started her profession in 2019 with Edward Jones. She voluntarily resigned on Dec. 24, 2022, and the agency filed a Type U5 terminating her registration on January 25.
Finra stated it realized that Bovee was named as a aid defendant within the SEC grievance from an investor grievance type it acquired referencing the case, the Securities and Change Fee v. Built-in Nationwide Assets Inc., et al.
In accordance with the grievance, from in or round June 2019 to a minimum of April 2023, INR/WeedGenics and its house owners marketed alternatives to put money into its hashish cultivation and retail distribution enterprise by way of its web site and different funding boards/web sites, the SEC stated. The agency was operated by Rolf Max Hirschmann, 52, of Eagle, Idaho, who is understood to the buyers as “Max Bergmann,” and Patrick Earl Williams, 34, of St. Petersburg, Fla., who had an internet presence as “BigRigBaby,”
Buyers had been led to consider that their funds can be used to develop and broaden a hashish cultivation facility in Adelanto, Calif., and that the enterprise would generate common curiosity funds for buyers. They had been additionally advised that the corporate’s amenities in California and Nevada had been making tens of millions in income annually, and the investments had been secure and assured. “Defendants additionally represented that that they had the requisite licenses and permits essential to function such amenities. In fact, nonetheless, all of this was a sham,” the SEC stated.
The funds had been as a substitute transferred to a number of accounts managed by Williams and Hirschmann and used to pay for private objects comparable to luxurious automobiles, residential upgrades, jewellery and grownup leisure, in addition to to repay different buyers, the SEC stated.
In all, INR/WeedGenics raised about $61.7 million—together with greater than $22.4 million from November 2022 to April 2023—from about 350 buyers nationwide. Greater than $16 million of investor cash was spent on Ponzi-like distributions, the SEC stated.
In Could, the company obtained an emergency order to close down the INR, claiming the hashish enterprise was fraudulent.
In accordance with the SEC, Bovee started speaking with INR buyers round September 2022 to get them to restructure their investments. Figuring out herself as “Aia Montgomery” to buyers, Bovee contacted buyers to tell them that INR was “going by way of main modifications,” and because of this, investor funds would additionally change.