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John A. Mattera et al civil and criminal case RSS Feed

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This forum is dedicated to research on John Andrew Mattera of Boca Raton and his accomplices.

This forum was set up to help uncover and share information about John A Mattera and his criminal activities and to help the victims of his crimes.


 



John A. Mattera


John Mattera is a former Boca Raton chiropractor.  In 1991 the Browland County Sheriff's office hired John Mattera to conduct physicals for the police force, a move that sparked some controversy about whether chiropractors are qualified to conduct physical exams.  In 1995 John Mattera's chiropractic license was suspended.

In March 1998, John Mattera was accused of bilking several doctors out of thousands of dollars of advance fees for loans they never received.  Mattera was charged with organized fraud, operating as an unlicensed mortgage broker, six counts of grand theft and six counts of unlawful taking of advance fees.  _________ was charged with grand theft and six counts of unlawful taking of advance fees, and Carl Coccaro was charged with organized fraud, authorities said. Investigators said Mattera operated The Givens Group Inc from his home in the 10500 block of Harich Lane, west of Boca Raton. He sent faxes to doctors across the country offering loans to buy clinics and equipment. But they had to sign a pre-loan agreement and wire upfront fees ranging from $2,500 to $5,000 to the group's bank account. None of the six doctors who paid the fees received loans.  _________, who was Mattera's live in girlfriend at the time, had all charges dropped because it was proven in court that Mattera had forged her name on all relevant documents. Mattera ended up pleaded guilty to operating an unlicensed mortgage brokerage firm and was sentenced to one year of probation and ordered to pay restitution to the victims.

In December 2000, a federal judge awarded a dozen Texans a $1.2 million judgment after Mattera and Praetorian failed to appear and defaulted on a lawsuit that claimed Mattera owed them more than $100,000. 

In 2001, Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office arrested John Mattera for investment fraud. Mattera was accused of stealing more than $90,000 from an investment client.  Mattera agreed to purchase 50,000 shares of stock from a Bonita Springs man, but never ended up paying the man after receiving the stock.  A review of Mattera's trading records showed that Mattera sold the stock for his own personal gain.  Mattera was charged with 4 counts of grand theft, four counts of advance fee fraud, and taking part in an organized scheme to defraud. Mattera pleaded guilty and served probation.






A judgment was entered against Mattera in the amount of $117,447.28 on November 15, 2002 for breach of contract; breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing; fraud; securities fraud; and constructive trust in connection with a stock purchase agreement between John Mattera and Hyperbaric Systems in which Mattera through his clearing trust company took 400,000 shares of Hyperbaric Systems without ever making the promised $104,000 payment.

According to reports by CitronResearch, Mattera controlled an offshore entity named Aurora Two Ltd.  Aurora Two Ltd. signed regulation S financing agreements with three publicly traded entities in November of 2003 - Epic Financial Corp, Legal Access Technologies Inc, and World Information Technology Inc.  In all three cases, Aurora Two Ltd. was issued between 8,000,000 - 12,000,000 shares of stock in advance of the funding, but the financing was never received. In the case of Epic Financial Corp and Legal Access Technologies Inc, filings say that the stock issued to Aurora Two Ltd was subsequently canceled.


John Mattera, pleaded guilty in 2003 to seven counts of grand theft in three separate Florida criminal cases, according to court records.  Among other things, Mattera stole $34,000 from two Florida investors by promising to provide them with shares of stock that Mattera falsely represented he owned.





Boca Raton cops arrested Mattera on St. Patrick's Day 2008, after a night out at Mizner Park turned into a violent, boozy bender, police records show. Paramedics called to his home found Mattera unresponsive in a pool of vomit and feces. When he awoke, Mattera attacked a fire-rescue captain, resulting in his being tased by police, the arrest report says. The charges were later dropped.

In 2009, the SEC charged Mattera for his role with Prime Time Group Inc (nka Hunt Gold Corp) "with fraudulently attempting to avoid registration requirements by backdating promissory notes to obtain improperly unrestricted shares of a company" according to the agency.  For his role with Prime Time Group Inc, John Mattera was banned from penny stocks and agreed to pay nearly $150,000 in fines, court records show.

SEC litigation release

SEC Complaint in this Matter

Final Judgment against Mattera in this Matter







John and his wife Lan
Phan


And now Mattera, 50, has been arrested and sued civilly by the SEC and charged criminally by federal prosecutors in New York in yet another alleged scheme - this one involving fake pre-IPO shares in  Groupon, Facebook and others in a scam netting between $11 million and $12.6 million. 

The scam included a fraudalent private placement memorandum for preferred stock in Fisker Automotive Inc that Mattera didn't really own.  Mattera collected $4.5 million in the fake Fisker share offering alone.  According to a criminal complaint unsealed in federal court Thursday Mattera blew at least $4 million of his victims' money on expensive jewelry, interior decorating and luxury cars.


SEC news release

SEC litigation release

SEC Complaint in this Matter






John A. Mattera mug shot


Mattera surrendered to federal authorities in his Fort Lauderdale home Thursday morning, charged with securities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering.  Expenditures included $825,000 at a local car dealership, $330,000 at jewelry stores, and $245,000 for home furnishing services. Mattera also is said to have written $1.8 million in checks to himself, mother Ann Mattera, and wife Lan Phan, a Broward-based osteopathic physician.





John Mattera has been sued repeatedly in county and federal court, and many of the complaints against him echo the most recent allegations.



John A. Mattera's photo
John Mattera
Chairman/CEO, The Mattera Reserve, Inc. and The Mattera Foundation
Chairman of the Advisory Board for The Praetorian Global Fund, Ltd.
Chairman of the Board and Managing Director of XEN IX Capital Ltd.
Managing director of Wilshire Capital Partners Group, LTD

Through the Mattera Foundation, Mattera paid for Florida Atlantic University's weekly football fan breakfast with legendary coach Howard Schnellenberger in 2010, although the athletic department refused his support this past year when word of his legal troubles first emerged.

Mattera also had served on the American Red Cross of Southern Florida's Broward County board but was asked to leave following a report on his alleged improprieties.


 


 





Accomplices


Johnny Ray Arnold


 

Johnny Ray Arnold was an accomplice in both the Prime Time Group Inc scam and the fake pre-IPO scam.  In the pre-IPO scam money was funneled into First American Service Transmittal, a title company owned by Johnny Ray Arnold. First American was supposed to hold the payments in escrow until the buyers received the shares. But they never arrived, and the money vanished from these accounts - Johnny Arnold passed the money along to himself and to John Mattera, as well as to accounts registered to Mattera's mother and wife, the complaint said.




Johnny Ray Arnold was an officer and director of Prime Time Group Inc during the scandalous activities.  The SEC complaint said that Arnold participated in drafting and reviewing Prime Time's press releases and also participated in a fraudulent scheme to backdate promissory notes and participated in the unregistered distribution of Prime Time stock to Mattera.  For his role in the Prime Time Group scam, Arnold was banned from penny stocks for life
 



Joseph Almazon


 


To attract clients, John Mattera allegedly enlisted the help of Joseph Almazon, an unregistered broker with Spartan Capital Partners on Long Island, who solicited investments for Mattera's Praetorian funds using LinkedIn advertisements that offered customers "the opportunity to buy pre-I.P.O. shares" in Facebook, Groupon, Twitter, Zynga and other companies. Mr. Almazon promised that "unlike most of the other investment banking firms, we let you sell your shares right at the open" - referring to the first day the company goes public, according to the civil action. Joseph Almazon is currently the Assistant Vice President of Sales at Conrad Capital in New York.




Joseph Almazon mug shot


In May of 2011, Joseph Almazon was arrest for his role in participating in the Kegs and Eggs riot.  Almazon was charged with  Criminal possession of a weapon, rioting, resisting arrest, reckless endangerment.  Almazon accepted a plea agreement that allowed him to avoid jail time.





Bradford van Siclen - Managing Director of the Praetorian Fund

David E Howard II - Representative of the Praetorian Fund

John Hartley - Director of the Praetorian Fund

According to the complaint, Van Siclen and Howard participated with Mattera in soliciting investments and were each actively involved in providing false documents and information to potential investors.  The complaint further alleges that Van Siclen drafted the subscription agreement and private placement memorandum each of which contained false representations and misled investors into believing that their funds would be safely held in escrow.

Bradford Van Siclen, 43, of Montclair, N.J., currently holds an officer and director position in Saudi American Holdings Corp which is a publicly traded entity on the pink sheets under the ticker (SAHN).

In March of 2011, David E. Howard II, 32, of New York City, was named in SEC litigation for his role in a Los Angeles based boiler room scam that defrauded almost 200 investors out of nearly $3 million in 2007 and 2008.  Howard and his cohorts used telemarketers and high pressure sell tactics to get investors to purchase unregistered securities through Flatiron Capital and Flatiron Systems based on misleading statements.  The Flatiron entities were not registered dealers and their highly touted investment strategies failed.  Howard misappropriated nearly $500,000 in investor funds, over $300,000 of which he used for personal expenses, including travel, personal and adult entertainment, and gifts for his girlfriend.

In July of 2011, David E. Howard II was charged in an off-exchange currency scam with two other people (Susan G. Davis and Joseph Burgos).  The CTFC complaint alleges that beginning in at least April of 2009, Davis, Howard, Burgos, and their companies, Forex Group, Forex Partners, and Highland Sone, fraudulently solicited cusomters to trade forex through accounts that the defendants managed at one of two foreign retail forex dealers. In soliciting customers, the defendants allegedly falsely claimed incredible profits spanning several years on their firms' repective websites and elsewhere.

There are also unconfirmed reports that David E. Howard II has a past felony conviction in Arizona related to drug charges.

 
John Hartley was named in a lawsuit being brought by American multi-millionaire R.D Hubbard who is being represented by Edward Burger.  The lawsuit claims that Hartley played a key role in soliciting funds for the fake Fisker preferred shares.




Dallas L. Robinson - Part of the Prime Time Group Inc scam

Troy K. Metz - Part of the Prime Time Group Inc scam

Robinson and Metz were both officers of Prime Time Group Inc at the time that the scandalous activities took place.  According to the Prime Time Group Inc complaint, Robinson and Metz were both actively involved in the dissemination of materially false and misleading press releases to the public while the improperly issued free trading shares held by Mattera were being sold into the market For their roles in the Prime Time Group scam, Robinson and Metz were each agreed to pay a $25,000 civil penalty and a 5 year penny stock ban.

 


Entities named in recent litigation related to the fake pre-IPO scam

First American Reliance Escrow, Inc
Mobilaire, S.A.
The Praetorian Global Fund, Ltd.
Praetorian G Power I, LLC
Praetorian G Power II, LLC
Praetorian G Power IV, LLC
Praetorian G Power V, LLC
Praetorian G Power VI, LLC
First American Service Transmittals, Inc
Spartan Capital Partners




Relief defendants named in the fake pre-IPO scam

Ann A. Mattera (John Mattera's mother)
Lan T. Phan a/k/a Lan Phan Mattera (John Mattera's wife)
Executive Source Holding, LLC






Anybody with any information about John Mattera or any of the above named accomplices or any of John Mattera's other business associates in South Florida, Long Island, Vancouver, and Orange County, CA that is not already publicly known information please use this forum to share your information to help the regulators and the victims.  If you are not comfortable posting your information in public please feel free to send me a private message.  For non paying IHUB users without the private message option, you can email information to the following email address - brigham.youngster@yahoo.com.  100% confidentiality guaranteed.

Information can also be sent to the following journalists who are closely following the developments of the current case:

Kevin Gale of the South Florida Business Journal

Adam Beasley of the Miami Herald
David Winzelberg of Long Island Business News
David Baines of The Vancouver Sun
Mike Caswell of Stockwatch


  Thanks to anyone who replies.









The Fisker Karma






Shivani Gupta of Drive Public Relations, Jon Marquez of Drive Public Relations, and Lisa Yigit from the Mattera Reserve Inc, the Mattera Foundation, and Xen IX Capital






 
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