3 companies, 1 Midtown Miami apartment, 0 employees: The setup for a $735,000 fraud
Using lies and three companies that existed only on paper, a 26-year old began running a $735,000 investor fraud out of his rented two-bedroom, two-bathroom, 1,262-square-foot Midtown Miami apartment.
That was just over three years ago. Now 29, Jack Ridall has been ordered to live in a smaller space than even a Midtown one-bedroom: a federal prison cell.
Ridall was sentenced to 2 1/2 years after pleading guilty to one count of wire fraud and will be incarcerated on or before April 22. He was arrested in 2023 at the Windsor Lofts at Universal City Apartments in Studio City, California, and has requested a prison near Los Angeles.
That will be before Ridall’s May 14 restitution hearing. While Ridall starts serving time and begins paying back money, the victim who wrote an impact statement to Miami federal court, a friend of Ridall’s father, will be coming out of retirement.
“The loss of funds I invested has had severe consequences for my financial stability and future plans,” the victim wrote. “What was once a nest egg for my future has been cruelly stripped away, leaving me with uncertainty and anxiety about how to recover from such a significant setback. I wasn’t employed or working upon discovering this fraud and wasn’t planning on going back to work due to Jack’s repetitive and encouraging advisement on the value of my investment.
“Since, I have had to go back to work doing something I really don’t enjoy.”
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Stratcapital, Guss Capital, Guss Actium, and lies
Starting in January 2021, Ridall registered Stratcapital, Guss Capital and Guss Actium Manager with the state, putting his apartment at 4 Midtown as the operating address for each. Then he began lying to potential investors, as listed in the indictment:
▪ Ridall “was an experienced and successful investor who had made millions of dollars investing.”
▪ “He had managed an investment portfolio worth millions of dollars.” There’s nothing in Ridall’s background that indicates this.
▪ He “used a proprietary trading system to generate positive returns in the stock market”
▪ “The investor’s money would be invested in securities or an investment fund.”
▪ Ridall’s guilty plea admits he told investors that “his companies were investment management companies with substantial assets.”
Once Ridall got investors’ money, if they began asking about how their investments progressed, he gave them fake documents to show high return rates.
He raked in $735,000.
“Contrary to Ridall’s materially false and fraudulent representations to investors, (he) did not invest investor funds in securities or in an investment fund,” his guilty plea admits, “but, instead he misappropriated approximately $400,000 of investor funds to pay for luxury retail purchases, hotel stays, restaurants, and fraudulent transfers to family members.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Roger Cruz handled the prosecution of the case investigated by the FBI’s Miami office with help from the SEC.
