A New Jersey investment advisor, who already owed the Securities and Exchange Commission $1.5 million, is now charged with fraudulently taking investment money from his friends to pay back his growing debts, including the SEC, the agency announced Wednesday.
Bruce J. Fixelle of Hillsdale, N.J., and two companies he controlled, are charged with fraud for soliciting a little more than $3 million from two investors who were close friends. Fixelle had met tthem hrough a community group he belonged to. The activity occurred between 2014 and 2017, the SEC said.
Fixelle told the investors he was going to invest their money in initial public offerings and secondary offerings, which he would then sell before the end of the trading day. Fixelle described his trading strategy as safe and successful. In reality, rather than investing these funds, he allegedly used the investors’ money to pay mounting personal debt and personal expenses, the SEC said. These investments were supposedly made through a company Fixelle controlled called Aurora Capital Management based in Lodi, N.J.
The debts Fixelle was piling up included $1.5 million Fixelle and another company he controlled, Genesis Advisory Services, had agreed to pay the SEC for earlier violations of financial regulations. In reaching that agreement in 2014, Fixelle and Genesis, also based in Hillsdale, did not admit or deny guilt.
In carrying out the recent scheme, Fixelle provided fictitious documents to the investors and to at least one of their accountants. In one instance, he altered a document to make it appear he had $600,000 in an account when there was actually only $48 in the account, the SEC complaint said.
The SEC’s complaint, filed in federal district court in New Jersey, charges Fixelle, Genesis and Aurora with violating the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws. The SEC is asking for disgorgement, interest and civil penalties.