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SEC CHARGES FREQUENT C2C GUEST SEAN DAVID MORTON WITH SECURITIES FRAUD
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ABC NEWS:
Self-Proclaimed 'Psychic' Charged with Investor Fraud
March 04, 2010 6:03 PM
ABC's Matthew Jaffe reports from Washington:
A self-proclaimed psychic who called himself "America's Prophet" and claimed the ability to predict stock market changes was charged today by the Securities & Exchange Commission with multi-million dollar securities fraud.
Sean David Morton started to solicit investors in the summer of 2006 by promising to use his psychic abilities for investment guidance, the SEC alleged in the complaint.
Morton "I have called all the highs and lows of the market, giving exact dates for rises and crashes over the last 14 years," Morton said in a newsletter to potential investors. Along with his newsletter, Morton also used his website, public speaking engagements, and appearances on a nationally syndicated radio show to promote his Delphi Investment Group.
According to George Canellos, director of the SEC's New York Regional Office, "Morton's self-proclaimed psychic powers were nothing more than a scam to attract investors and steal their money."
In all, Morton raised more than $6 million from over 100 investors in 2006 and 2007. Morton invested about half the funds with foreign currency trading firms and diverted some of the investor funds, including at least $240,000 into his and his wife's non-profit religious organization, Prophecy Research Institute.
Morton, his wife Melissa Morton, and three corporate entities that they own under the umbrella of the Delphi Associates Investment Group were the subject of the SEC charges.
The SEC complaint can be found HERE.
AND NY POST
[link to www.nypost.com]
Too bad he couldn't foresee getting caught.
Federal regulators filed suit today against a self-proclaimed psychic who allegedly scammed $6 million by conning suckers into believing that his extrasensory abilities would make them "piles of money" by trading foreign currencies.
Sean David Morton -- who bills himself as "America's Prophet" -- "falsely touted his historical success in psychically predicting the various rises and falls of the market," according to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The California-based huckster -- whose Web site shows him posing with celebs including Sting, Robin Williams and the late Farrah Fawcett -- solicited investors on late-night radio shows and at the 2006 "New Life Expo" in New York City, the Manhattan federal court filing says.
The suit seeks to put an end to Morton's alleged fraud and force him to cough up his "ill-gotten gains" along with unspecified fines.
Morton, 51, allegedly lied repeatedly to more than 100 investors in his Delphi Investment Group, which the SEC says "was not an actual company but was simply a moniker Morton used."
He falsely claimed investor funds would be placed into three different accounts called "Vajra Productions," "27 Investments" and "Magic Eight Ball Distributing," that were really just shell companies, the suit says.
In reality, the SEC says "he invested only about half of the funds with foreign currency trading firms" and diverted the rest, including $240,000 that went to a non-profit religious organization called the Prophecy Research Institute that he runs with his wife, Melissa, who's also named in the suit.
Morton, who's slated to appear later this month at the New Life Expo at the New Yorker Hotel, couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
Read more: [link to www.nypost.com]
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