A fraud conviction and five years in prison weren't enough to stop a Michigan man from taking another crack at ripping off investors, according to charges filed by the SEC.
In fact, Antonio Bravata got started on his second scam before he even finished his sentence for his first fraud, the SEC said.
Bravata, 31, of Frendale, Mich., is a recidivist scam artist who tried to orchestrate a fraud "strikingly similar" to his first crime during the final years of his 2013 prison sentence, while in home confinement, the SEC charged in a civil complaint filed with U.S. District Court in Michigan on Tuesday.
Bravata even got help with his scheme—centered around a firm he started called Primo World Ventures—from his father, John Bravata, who is still serving a 20-year sentence for masterminding the scheme that landed Antonio in jail, the SEC said.
"John Bravata advised Antonio Bravata via telephone and email from federal prison and encouraged Antonio Bravata to offer Primo securities to investors," the complaint stated. "In consultation with his father, Antonio Bravata filed articles of organization for Primo, and obtained a tax ID number for Primo from the Internal Revenue Service."
The SEC said it nabbed the younger Bravata before he could put his second plan into action and that, without admitting to or denying the allegations, he agreed to settle the case under terms that include a permanent bar from the securities industry and a $75,000 penalty. The settlement is subject to court approval, the SEC added.
Bravata and his father were convicted of running a $50 million Ponzi scheme that used a real estate investment fund called BBC Equities to victimize hundreds of investors in Michigan and Ohio, according to authorities. In addition to his five-year sentence, Bravata was ordered to pay $7 million restitution.
It was during the final months of Bravata's prison sentence, during a period of home confinement, that he started work on Primo, creating offering documents that hid his role in the company and that were in some cases "word-for-word identical" to the offering materials used in his and his father's BBC Equities scheme, the SEC complaint said.
The stated goal of Primo was to raise up to $1 billion in an offering that promised returns of 6%, 8% or 10%, depending on how long investors agreed to hold their shares, the complaint said.
At the urging of his father, he also hired a former BBC Equities salesman to act as CEO of Primo to help Bravata conceal his felony conviction from investors, the SEC said.