The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is suing the estate of an investment manager who committed suicide last month, claiming he sold $52 million in phony bonds to investors-many of them prominent college basketball coaches.

J. David Salinas, through his companies Select Asset Management and J. David Group, defrauded investors in a Ponzi scheme that stretched from 2004 to the present, the SEC said in a complaint filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas in Houston.

The investors lost millions and included numerous college basketball coaches, including Lute Olson, former coach at the University of Arizona, and Scott Drew, coach at Baylor University. Salinas was also founder of an elite high school summer basketball program in Houston and a former booster to the University of Houston and Rice basketball programs.

Salinas, 60, was found dead on July 17 inside his Friendswood, Tex., home, with a fatal gunshot wound just a few days after he was interviewed by federal investigators about the scheme. His death was ruled a suicide.

The SEC is also suing Brian A. Bjork, chief investment officer of Salinas' former company, Select Asset Management, for allegedly participating in the bond scheme.

U.S. District Judge Keith P. Ellison granted the SEC's request to freeze all assets of Salinas' estate, the companies and Bjork's assets pending the outcome of the case. A preliminary hearing is set for Aug. 10.

From 2004 to the present, Bjork offered securities in two fraudulent schemes that raised an estimated $52 million, according to the SEC complaint.

In the first scheme, the SEC claims the two suspects defrauded more than 100 investors of about $39 million, with Bjork allegedly offering investors corporate bonds through Salinas' two companies, J. David Group and J. David Financial.

Bjork and Salinas promised investors safe, fixed-income returns by investing in highly rated corporate debt and other bonds with annual yields up to 9%. In reality, the J. David Group corporate bond offering was bogus, according to the SEC.

Through his company, Select Asset, Bjork provided investors account statements reflecting investments in bonds that, in truth, did not exist or that neither J. David Group nor J. David Financial ever acquired as they promised, according to the SEC.

In a second scheme, Bjork, through Select Asset and its subsidiary, Select Capita, offered securities issued by two private funds that raised about $13 million from at least 52 investors since August 2007.

At the time of his death, Salinas was the board chairman of the J. David Financial Group in Friendswood. But Salinas was best known in basketball circles as the co-founder of the Houston Select summer basketball program in 1992. Houston Select teams have won more than 12 titles, according to the program's Web site.

Among the coaches who allegedly invested with Salinas include Olson, Drew, Texas Tech coach Billy Gillispie and Nebraska coach Doc Sadler, according to a report by CBSSports.com. Former Rice coach Willis Wilson, now the coach at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, also reportedly invested with Salinas.

-Jim McConville