The SEC has charged South Carolina attorney M. Mark McAdams and R. Dane Freeman with securities fraud involving their firm, Global Holdings LLC. According to the SEC, Mr. McAdams and Mr. Freeman promised investors return rates as high as 4,900 percent by “buying bonds or notes directly from issuers at a discount and then quickly reselling them for a profit on international trading platforms.” Mr. McAdams, a practicing attorney, used the letterhead and e-mail system of Global Holdings without the firm’s knowledge to solicit investors and conduct business.
The two men are alleged to have raised over $3.5 million through “joint venture agreements in which they represented that Global Holdings would use investor funds to buy and sell Standard and Poor’s AAA or AA rated bonds or Medium Term Notes and trade them overseas to earn profits.” Global Holdings never paid the approximately 35 individuals who invested with Mr. McAdams and Mr. Freeman, yet the two men “continued to raise investments for the firm from new investors.” The SEC further claims that “some investor money was diverted to pay Freeman’s family and friends as well as a personal debt he owed.”
Mr. McAdams and Mr. Freeman also misrepresented their investment success with false claims that “had already participated in hundreds of transactions that produced hundreds of millions of dollars for dozens of investors.” The two men additionally promised investors unattainably high rates of return in only two months. In the SEC Press Release, Director of the SEC’s Atlanta Regional Office Rhea Kemble Dignam commented, “McAdams and Freeman promised astronomical returns that they could not possibly deliver.” |
