Hunterdon man charged in multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme

NEWARK - A Hunterdon County man has been charged by the federal Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in connection with his role in a multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme that partially operated out of Manville.

Christopher Anderson, of Readington, is one of six people charged with fraud in a civil action filed by the SEC in federal court in July.

Anderson, however, was not included in criminal charges filed by U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger against the other people involved in the more than $35 million scheme.

Among those facing criminal charges is Eliyahu “Eli” Weinstein, a Lakewood resident whose 24-year federal prison sentence was commuted by President Donald Trump after being twice convicted of defrauding investors of a total of $230 million.

"Weinstein, along with four other individuals, has once again perpetrated a sophisticated fraud scheme causing losses of millions of dollars," Sellinger said in announcing the charges last month. "He did so by using a fake name and falsely promising access to deals involving scarce medical supplies, baby formula, and first-aid kits supposedly destined for wartime Ukraine. These were brazen and sophisticated crimes that involved multiple conspirators and drew right from Weinstein’s playbook of fraud."

The others named in the criminal complaints are Aryeh “Ari” Bromberg, 49, and Joel Wittels, 57, both of Lakewood, Shlomo Erez, 55, a citizen and resident of Israel, and Alaa Hattab, 34, of Ottawa, Canada.

Anderson and his partner, Richard Curry, of Pennsylvania, owned Tryon Management Group LLC with an address on Brooks Boulevard in Manville.

The SEC is alleging that beginning in or around November 2021, Weinstein, Bromberg, and Wittels raised money from investors for purported deals through Optimus Investments Inc. while concealing Weinstein’s identity, criminal history, and involvement from investors.

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Beginning in January 2022, Anderson and Curry allegedly began raising money for Optimus through Tryon Management Group LLC, and by August 2022, they joined the other defendants in actively concealing Weinstein’s role in the venture.

Weinstein, who used the alias of Mike Konig, had been out of prison on his prior convictions less than a year when the new scheme began.

According to the SEC, by at least April 2022, when some of the purported Optimus deals proved to be unprofitable, Weinstein, Bromberg, Wittels, Curry and Anderson allegedly undertook a fraudulent scheme to use funds raised from investors to make Ponzi-like payments to earlier investors while mischaracterizing them as investment returns.

The SEC alleges that, collectively, the defendants’ fraudulent scheme raised at least $38 million from at least 150 investors.

According to the federal charges, Weinstein told Anderson and Curry that in return for the money Tryon was raising, Optimus would finance or purchase the medical supplies and then resell them to a third party for a profit, which would be split with Tryon.

Most of the investors in Tryon were friends, relatives or close associates of Anderson and Curry.

As part of the scheme, Tryon provided investors with notes promising outsized returns, many of which had an interest rate of 48%, an additional equity return between 2% and 10% and a full return of the investment within three to six months.

Tryon sent investors updates that touted "Mike Konig's" track record of brokering large contracts involving millions of units of COVID-19 medical supplies and other products.

According to the criminal complaint, investors gave money to Tryon based on these representations and concealed Weinstein's involvement in the deals and his criminal record.

Almost immediately after Tryon was transferring money to Optimus, the deals that Weinstein were purportedly making were not generating the promised returns and Tryon was unable to pay the monthly payments to investors.

And then, rather than revealing this information to investors, Anderson and Curry agreed with Weinstein, still posing as Mike Konig, to pool money from the investors and use it to make the monthly payments to the other investors in a classic Ponzi scheme, court documents say.

During 2022, Weinstein asked Anderson and Curry to raise money to finance the purchase and delivery of 3 million first aid kits to the people of Ukraine, a deal that would generate $84 million in profits. But, according to court papers, the entire deal was fake.

He also asked Tryon to raise money to finance the purchase of 100 million N95 masks and 29 shipping containers of baby formula.

But, court papers say, Weinstein used the $2.5 million raised for the masks to invest in the Turkish stock market and no baby formula was ever purchased.

On Aug. 26, 2022, Weinstein met Anderson, Curry and the others in a Branchburg hotel conference room where he admitted his true identity and confessed that the other deals were false.

Anderson, Curry and Tryon have also been named in at least 20 civil suits filed in Superior Court by investors looking for a return of their money.

Email: mdeak@mycentraljersey.com

Mike Deak is a reporter for mycentraljersey.com. To get unlimited access to his articles on Somerset and Hunterdon counties, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: Hunterdon man charged in multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme