[ad_1]
A convicted Beverly Hills con artist with a protracted historical past of swindles pleaded responsible to a different one Friday, admitting that he duped traders out of greater than $18 million by concocting a sham hashish empire whereas finishing a sentence in a previous prison case.
Mark Roy Anderson, 69, pleaded responsible to 2 counts of wire fraud, the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace mentioned. He duped his victims with false claims that he ran corporations invested in hemp farms and cannabis-infused retail merchandise, in addition to a sham bottling enterprise.
Anderson, his traders found, is a convicted con artist who began swindling individuals at the very least three many years in the past. He launched his purported hemp enterprise instantly after his Might 2019 launch from the federal jail in Texas the place he had served greater than 11 years for an oil funding rip-off, federal authorities mentioned.
Within the first scheme he pleaded responsible to Friday, Anderson tricked traders in 2020 and 2021 into offering funding for his firm, known as Harvest Farm Group, to reap and course of hemp grown on his farm into medical-grade cannabidiol (CBD) isolate — a chemical present in marijuana — to be offered for a considerable revenue.
Anderson persuaded traders to spend money on Harvest Farm Group by falsely representing that, by means of the corporate, he owned and operated a hemp farm in Kern County. He additionally lied that he had already accomplished profitable and worthwhile harvests of hemp from the farm, which the FBI mentioned didn’t exist.
He additionally falsely mentioned he was utilizing his personal equipment and tools to transform the hemp into CBD isolate and Delta 8, a psychoactive substance that, like CBD isolate, may very well be utilized in shopper merchandise starting from olive oil to physique cream, federal officers mentioned.
Within the second scheme, Anderson deceived traders from April 2021 to Might 2023 by soliciting cash for sham corporations Bio Pharma and Verta Bottling corporations, by claiming that these companies efficiently manufactured, bottled, and packaged business merchandise.
Anderson falsely acknowledged that his bottling corporations owned and possessed hundreds of thousands of {dollars}’ price of belongings, together with hemp biomass, CBD isolate, CBD oil, manufacturing tools and a lease for a warehouse to fabricate and promote its merchandise.
Anderson used a few of the cash to purchase a $1.3-million gated residence surrounded by citrus groves in Ojai, based on the FBI. He diverted one other $2.3 million to non-public bills, together with greater than $650,000 for classic and luxurious vehicles, $13,000 for chartered personal jet flights and $142,000 for merchandise from Williams-Sonoma, Ferragamo, Crate & Barrel and different retailers, the FBI alleged in a prison grievance.
He has agreed to forfeit his ill-gotten beneficial properties from these schemes, together with 15 vehicles — one in every of them a Ferrari — and his Ojai actual property.
Anderson, a disbarred lawyer, has a federal courtroom listening to set for Aug. 23. He faces a statutory most sentence of 20 years in federal jail for every depend.
Former Instances workers author Michael Finnegan contributed to this report.
[ad_2]
Source link
