Sometime around April 2008, Christopher Brown Cornett, 43, of Buda, TX, came up with a business plan, an idea, a vision – well, okay, sure, federal prosecutors would more likely prefer to describe it as a crime. In hindsight, it wasn’t all the clever a scam. If I were to merely describe Cornett’s scheme as one involving a Forex Ponzi, that two word description would pretty much tell you the whole thrust of this droll undertaking.
By September 2009, Cornett had another partner in crime, 49-year-old Heidi Beryl Beyer, Scottsdale, AZ and the two touted investors about a pool of investment funds that would invest in foreign currency exchange (“Forex”). In this post-Great Recession, post-Madoff, post all the flim flams of recent years, Cornett and Beyer didn’t bestow upon us an ingenious fraud — we have no heart-stopping headline or sexy news bulletin. What we got here is — snore — another Forex scam. Another Ponzi.
By now, you could probably fill in the blanks. Victimized investors were promised impressive profits from Forex trading. Cornett and Beyer spoke glowingly of the bucks to be made; and in some pitches to investors, this pair actually put the promises in writing via email or the Subscription Agreement that you were asked to sign. By the end of this Ponzi crime spree, more than 150 victims had invested about $14.6 million, resulting in over $10.6 million in losses. Those pilfered dollars went, among other places, to pay off Cornett’s $600,000-plus Las Vegas gambling losses and towards the purchase of a spiffy, new Chevrolet Corvette.
The Wheels Of Justice Turn
In October 2012, Cornett pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering; Beyer pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud.
On February 15, 2013, the defendant were sentenced in federal court in Austin, TX. Cornett and Beyer respectively got 40 years and 6 six years in prison with three years of supervised release. Additionally, the pair were jointly and severally ordered to pay $9,525,031.77 in restitution, and Cornett got hit with a further $705,701.62 repayment.
Bill Singer’s Comment
Now here’s some background information about Cornett that I’d like to share with you and, honestly, it took me a minute or so to locate these tidbits via a Google search.
FINRA’s public online database, Broker Check, informs us that Cornett was employed at Dean Witter Reynolds, Inc. from August 1998 to March 2001, and, thereafter, at Brookstreet Securities from April 2001 to March 2002.
Next, let’s pull up a public, online regulatory document from the former National Association of Securities Dealers (the “NASD”), which became the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”). More precisely, you’re reading a March 2003 NASD Notice to Members (“NTM”). Here’s what you would learn on page 144 of that NASD NTM:
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