Tag Archives: SEC

so orange is to be the new black for gladwyne’s scott mason, eh?

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This is a screenshot sent to this blog that is a public photo,
note the little globe.

It’s a crazy tale, isn’t it?

First of all there’s the whole Main Line of it all and should we just call it for what people think it is? Stealing from customers to keep up with the Joneses in the 19035 ?

And then there’s the thing that this is a man who’s just been convicted of worse but similar to what his father did years ago and what’s up with that? If you figure this man is 66 years old, he was old enough in the mid 70s, etc. to comprehend what his father did, which undoubtedly had a horrible effect on his own family growing up, right? Should we just say apparently not since this is like a twisted repeating pattern of life?

https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025-20

https://www.justice.gov/usao-edpa/pr/gladwyne-investment-adviser-charged-misappropriating-more-17-million-clients-through

What also amuses me about this case is anytime anyone has tried to post any of the articles in any Gladwyne Pennsylvania social media groups since this saga started, the posts get deleted?

Nothing to see here, can’t interrupt life in one of the towns of the Magic Kingdom known as Lower Merion.

It’s always interesting sociologically how people react to these stories. You know they’re all whispering behind their hands, but it’s like they don’t want to admit in public it happened. Wonder what the boys are saying at Squires Golf Club in Ambler or wherever it is?

Gladwyne Investment Adviser Charged With Misappropriating More Than $17 Million From Clients Through Two Long-Running Fraud Schemes

So many questions, right?

Honestly, I don’t feel sorry for the man. I go back to the fact he’s 66 years old. He’s old enough to remember how what his father Melvyn Mason did to at least his family must have felt right?

Newspaper archives contain the sins of the father and the Prudential Bache scandals of the 1970s don’t they?

So did Scott Mason have to choose this path he will now forever be remembered for? I mean adults are suppose to know the difference between right and wrong, right? After all it’s what you teach your kids or are supposed to/try to, right?

So supposedly Scott Mason gets sentenced in May. Wonder what his wife knows? And you have to wonder what happens to the rest of his immediate and extended family because of his actions including his father? And what will happen to the people he stole from?

I truly feel sorry for his kids (their worlds must be so blown up, he’s their dad) as well as obviously sorry for his victims.

I also feel sorry for the charitable institutions and any nonprofits affected by his actions and what about his alma mater Hobart William Smith College in Geneva, New York? And if he is a slumlord landlord up there, what happens to the students who have rented properties from him? Do they stay in their places and the bank just takes over or what happens?

So many questions….still. So much squandered by this man who has had so many legit opportunities and is this the legacy he will leave his kids and grandchildren? And you have to wonder if before any of this happened if his kids even knew what his father had gotten up to when he was a kid? This is like a real life NetFlix series it’s so messed up.

I will begin to end this with it’s astounding. He took a sledgehammer to so many lives by his actions, including his own. In fact, greed is not good. Did Scott Mason think he was Gordon Gekko or something?

And to the 19035? Y’all were better before the nouveau invasion. The entire Main Line was.

Hopefully people will learn from this, but our society seems so lost and divided, I just don’t know. Until then, orange is the new Main Line black, right?

seeking rubicon

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So when the Philadelphia Business Journal articles came out about Scott and Lynne Mason and Rubicon Wealth Management and Orchard Park Real Estate Holding LLC, one of the first things I did was go to the Rubicon website to see what they were about. https://www.rubiconwealth.com/ was the website and when I plunked it into Google I came up empty:

Then yesterday the Philadelphia Inquirer article broke more of the story wide open (totally worth a subscription to read the article)….

So I think the Rubicon phone number is the same from when they were in Bala Cynwyd, before Blue Bell, and it is just ported as a VoIP number. Who knows if there is still an actual office? 980 Jolly Road in Blue Bell is an office complex- think this is the website: https://www.980jollyroad.com/

This is Rubicon’s Blue Bell office address:

980 Jolly Road Suite 115

Blue Bell, PA 19422

Phone: 610-668-4615

Fax: 610-668-2890

Mon-Fri: 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM

Sat-Sun: By Appointment

Anyway, I was getting stuck trying to figure out where the cache of the Rubicon Wealth Management website was. I figured it had to be somewhere, it’s the Internet, right? So I asked a techie friend what the name of the website was that captures these old things if they are entered. They texted me back “Internet Archive : Wayback Machine.”

Well dayyyummmmmnnn, let me introduce you to Rubicon Wealth Management as they have it: https://web.archive.org/web/20231002005659/https://www.rubiconwealth.com/

Now I have zero clue how long this stuff lives on this site, so here are some links and you’re welcome:

https://web.archive.org/web/20231202141449/https://www.rubiconwealth.com/resource-center/videos

https://web.archive.org/web/20231211153343/https://www.rubiconwealth.com/blog

https://web.archive.org/web/20230922140436/https://www.rubiconwealth.com/services

https://web.archive.org/web/20230922160450/https://www.rubiconwealth.com/resource-center/presentations

https://web.archive.org/web/20231202160527/https://www.rubiconwealth.com/meet-the-team

So where to begin? Before I get to the website, allow me to start with one of their little website video snippets, geared towards women. As a woman, considering the accusations, this is particularly despicable. A lot of women of a certain age, are not necessarily investment savvy, and can be too trusting.

Then I found this other website called wallmine https://wallmine.com/adviser/235961/rubicon-wealth-management-llc

And that led me to the info on the former Chief Compliance Officer who left a while back I guess. He was the Compliance Officer before Scott Jeffrey Mason donned the cape of regulation, which is truthfully kind of dumb because where is the separation of church and state?

former Chief Compliance officerDownload

So people were asking who was on the Rubicon website. Well here are your screenshots:

So Malvern Capital Management who was in the Inquirer article is literally right in Malvern. Here is a link to their website. They are also potential victims, aren’t they? Like what about the people related to Scott and Lynne Mason? You know when you have “family” in the financial business, it’s common that they manage their family members’ assets as well, isn’t it? Or you do business with neighbors, friends, the folks you met at a civic association meeting, it’s all good over a round or two of golf, a cocktail party, etc? What will the fallout be exactly? This is actually a tragedy that will possibly have several acts, right?

Meet The Team
Malvern Capital Management

This whole thing takes your breath away. I can still find nothing at all on the Orchard Park Real Estate Holdings LLC except the LLC basics on the Commonwealth of PA website.

Well that’s all I’ve got but I hear the 19035 is all abuzz. Also, so we are clear: I am not following this for the salaciousness alone, I think this is wrong. People entrust their life savings to people and they expect honesty and a moral compass, right? I realize the cases here are just beginning but remember, the Philadelphia Business Journal articles and the Philadelphia Inquirer article both mentioned that “clients have been in contact with FBI and SEC investigators who are seeking information about Rubicon”, he said” to directly quote Joseph DiStefano’s Inquirer article.

I will be honest and say out loud that this is so sad what the Main Line has become. And the Nouveau Main Line is ripe for these issues because these people move there now because it’s an exclusive-ish suburbia in Lower Merion Township and no one knows the history at all. And a perennial problem? People from one side of the river quite literally in Montgomery County never pay attention to the other side of the river. It’s like when I was growing up, the Main Line crowd and the Chestnut Hill crowd didn’t mingle, and neither of them mingled much with Ambler, Abington, Dresher, Jenkintown, Huntingdon Valley, Bucks County, etc.

The First Amendment as always allows me my opinions.

Here’s yesterday’s post:

mind blown: lower merion is new grifter capital of the main line?

mind blown: lower merion is new grifter capital of the main line?

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Goodness ….WHAT, I say WHAT is in the water in Lower Merion Township? It’s like the summer of rather interesting Lower Merion location articles, n’est-ce pas? August 2nd, I wrote about Josh Verne, touched on Joseph La Forte and other certain Lower Merion denaro-centric scandals…

BUT STOP THE FREAKING PRESSES AGAIN THERE IS A NEW SCANDAL. This one will be a peach. Hat tip to the Philadelphia Business Journal for breaking the story wide open and public…but the guy they mention in the article is not the only one suing their “advisor”…AND once again, yes more fine upstanding Lower Merion Township residents? Perhaps the Magic Kingdom has priced itself out of residents with moral compasses? And I think the Philadelphia Inquirer article is going to be a fan favorite (and the subscription is much more reasonable, sadly, and I like and appreciate the Philadelphia Business Journal as well.)

https://www.inquirer.com/business/scott-mason-rubicon-ponzi-investor-complaint-20240813.html

Yup. Mind blown.

But wait…more articles…from the Philadelphia Business Journal who popped out with these ahead of the Inquirer. All articles are interesting…very interesting….very interesting….

https://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/news/2024/08/06/blue-bell-rubicon-wealth-lawsuit-stanley-tulin.html

Philadelphia Business Journal Philadelphia-area wealth manager sued for allegedly stealing $20M from client By Jeff Blumenthal – Senior Reporter, Philadelphia Business Journal Aug 6, 2024

And yet another PBJ article came out about others filing suit.

https://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/news/2024/08/08/blue-bell-scott-mason-rubicon-orchard-lawsuit.html

Philadelphia Business Journal: More alleged victims, millions in losses emerge in Philadelphia-area wealth manager case By Jeff Blumenthal – Senior Reporter, Philadelphia Business Journal Aug 8, 2024

Of course I am legit wondering aloud what in the Sam Hell is in the water in Lower Merion these days. And OMG the woman the articles filing suit is the guy’s aunt according to press so far?

Here’s an article from 2005 that shows the beginnings of the SEI relationship with Rubicon/Mason:

https://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/stories/2005/05/23/story3.html

Philadelphia Business Journal: SEI tries franchise concept By Larry Rulison  –  Staff Writer May 23, 2005 Updated May 19, 2005, 11:30am EDT

But this is not the most interesting thing of all, is it? If you cross reference an obituary notice you can verify that this is not the only Mason who has had issues, isn’t it? Like father like son?

(And yes the First Amendment, the SEC, and the New York Times can back this ALL up, can’t it?)

sec.gov_files_litigation_litreleases_lr15124Download

I can’t find much on the Orchard Park whatever business other than this:

However…when I went perusing the Montgomery County dockets I found three cases all filed within the past few weeks plus the SEI related one:

I went and pulled what I could find for Rubicon Wealth Management/Scott Mason. There was a Rubicon Securities on FINRA that was in Bala Cynwyd that looks like it closed up shop in 2002 and when you try to clickaroony on the Rubicon Wealth Management website , https://www.rubiconwealth.com/ it is “not found”. It disappeared apparently as a website? I found some stuff on Zoominfo.

40130Download
883851 RubiconDownload
individual_1023965Download

Society snippets of yore, tell their own story, right? Social climbing and needing to belong? Just go noodle through Newspapers.com with their names in it.

I am feeling sarcastic towards Lower Merion Township and their new found “celebrities” but I am seriously wondering what is in the water. In all seriousness, this is kind of disgusting and I think like the other stories of the Nouveau Main Line it is going to grow legs. As an issue, it’s like all these Madoff types came to town isn’t it? It’s sad, gross, disgusting and God don’t like ugly too, isn’t it?

This is all so Ponzi-esque and Madoff-esque isn’t it?

As I close this out, I ask again if perhaps the Magic Kingdom has priced itself out of residents with moral compasses? Is it SO important to live high SO high on the hog? And since I started sharing the Philadelphia Business Journal articles I have received some unpleasant private messages from the 19035. To those people I say wake up. Before this is over how many people will be hurt including their innocent family members? Philadelphia Business Journal and the article about Mason’s Aunt. OMG

This continues to grow legs, including a blip in the Glenside Local. This seems like it will be a tall tale of many articles? The Main Line is so not what it used to be….

But buy more popcorn, Lower Merion’s ugly underbelly is getting another scratch this summer, eh?

The postscript is for those not familiar with that Squires club there was quite an amusing article in Philadelphia Magazine in 2016:

https://www.phillymag.com/news/2016/07/30/squires-the-last-boys-club

Squires: The Last Boys’ Club

High-stakes gambling. Near-death experiences. Semi-naked golf. For decades, what happened inside the exclusive, strictly all-male Squires golf club stayed in the clubhouse — until now.

By Tom McGrath· 7/30/2016, 9:00 p.m.

ohhh it’s main line newsworthy, stop the presses!

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It’s getting hard to keep the Lower Merion Main Line grifters separate in people’s heads – I mean there is Josh Verne formerly of Gladwyne and Joseph LaForte late of Haverford, right? And there they were both were living in the Magic Kingdom of Lower Merion Township for a while, yes?

Anyway, it seems to be UPS. He did it again for Josh Verne. And on the new Nouveau Main Line, maybe they’re finally learning the lesson. If some of these people seem too good to be true, generally speaking, they might be?

Here’s the press release that was forwarded to me today:

Former Gladwyne Entrepreneur Charged with Bilking Investors Out of Millions of Dollars, Forging Documents, and Obstructing Justice

 

Friday, August 2, 2024

For Immediate Release

U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Pennsylvania

PHILADELPHIA – United States Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero announced that an indictment was unsealed against Josh S. Verne, 47, formerly of Gladwyne, PA, now a resident of Fort Lauderdale, FL, charging him with 28 separate federal crimes, including securities fraud, wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, witness retaliation, and witness intimidation.

According to the indictment, Verne carried out a series of schemes from at least in or about 2017 to 2020, through which he defrauded dozens of investors, prospective investors, employees, and business partners out of millions of dollars, forged documents, and obstructed justice by threatening, intimidating, and retaliating against others in connection with the federal criminal investigation.

The indictment alleges that Verne held himself out as a wealthy and successful businessman, entrepreneur, and investor, and that he carried out his fraudulent activities through a series of limited liability companies, of which he was the chief executive and over which he maintained control. It is alleged that, among other things, Verne falsely represented his prior business successes, falsely represented his personal net worth, falsely represented his own investments, and falsely represented the financial health of his companies and investments, in order to induce others to invest in or provide loans to him or his companies. For instance, according to the indictment, Verne provided an investor with a forged Goldman Sachs statement that showed family investment holdings for Verne of more than $50 million, when, in fact, Verne did not have an investment account at Goldman Sachs in his own name or in his family’s names, much less an account with a market value of more than $50 million.

It is further alleged that Verne misused business and investor funds to repay prior debts and to finance an affluent lifestyle he could not afford, such as personal expenses related to renovations to his showcase vacation property on the Jersey shore, travel on private jets, contributions to political candidates, personal charitable contributions, and country club payments. According to the indictment, in order to delay and prevent discovery by law enforcement of his own misconduct, Verne later sent bank and FedEx confirmations purporting to confirm delivery of funds to investors to whom he had promised repayment; the bank and FedEx confirmations were false and fraudulent.

The indictment further alleges that Verne stole the identity of a former employee from his company, forging the employee’s signature on a sales agreement to disguise an unauthorized sale of the employee’s shares of stock. According to the indictment, Verne obtained $150,000 from the unauthorized sale and used those funds to make payments to himself and to a prior investor.

Finally, the indictment alleges that, after Verne met with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and learned details about the investigation, Verne obstructed justice by contacting the former employee and threatening to divulge false, embarrassing information about him because the employee provided information to law enforcement.

Verne was arrested today in Fort Lauderdale. He is expected to appear in federal court in Philadelphia next week for an arraignment.

If convicted, the defendant faces a maximum possible sentence of 532 years in prison (including a mandatory minimum of two years in prison to run consecutively to any other term of imprisonment), three years of supervised release, a $21,250,000 fine, and a $2,800 special assessment.

If you, your family member, or anyone that you know believes they may have been a victim of these crimes and would like to report the information, please contact the Federal Bureau of Investigation at 215-418-4000 and reference “Josh S. Verne.”

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Paul G. Shapiro and Jerome M. Maiatico. The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Philadelphia Regional Office investigated civil securities fraud charges against Verne, which are pending.

An indictment, information, or criminal complaint is an accusation. A defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

Contact

USAPAE.PressBox@usdoj.gov
215-861-8300

And then there is Joseph La Forte.

La Forte has been in the papers so often I lost track but here’s a few things:

https://www.phillymag.com/news/2024/02/24/par-funding-financial-scandal

Wife of Par Funding founder pleads guilty to hiding millions in tax fraud case

https://www.inquirer.com/crime/par-funding-joseph-laforte-racketeering-indictment-trial-20240227.html

https://www.justice.gov/usao-edpa/pr/par-funding-principals-charged-rico-indictment-addition-pending-charges-securities

https://www.inquirer.com/news/lisa-mcelhone-guilty-par-funding-joseph-laforte-trial-rodney-ermel-ken-bacon-20240322.html

Then of course there is the whole billboard drama of it all…

https://www.inquirer.com/business/thaddeus-bartkowski-catalyst-auction-billboards-20240628.html

https://www.inquirer.com/business/billboard-catalyst-thaddeus-bartkowski-main-line-convention-center-east-whiteland-concord-tredyffrin-20240710.html

https://www.pacourts.us/assets/opinions/Superior/out/J-A28037-22m%20-%20105560895226829459.pdf?cb=1

https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/9404425/wolfington-p-v-bartkowski-t

https://law.justia.com/cases/pennsylvania/superior-court/2021/2913-eda-2019.html

Just goes to show you kids it’s not always golden in the Magic Kingdom…. Say that might make a good billboard, right? Too soon?

TTFN!