Smarte Real Estate Investments, California Files Complaint | Goodman & Nekvasil P.A. May Recover Investor Losses
Smarte Real Estate Investments Inc., California Files Complaint
ACCORDING TO THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA:
This action involves the fraudulent offer and sale of securities by Jay Belson and several entities he controlled. The securities were offered to finance the purchase, rehabilitation, and sale of residential real estate in Southern California.
Smarte Real Estate Investments, Inc. (“Smarte”) is a California corporation formed on January 13, 2011. Its principal place of business is Beverly Hills, California. Smarte is the sole member of Bellagio Place Management LLC, the manager of Bellagio Place Residence, LLC.
From at least January 2011 through June 2016, Belson and his entities raised at least $17,975,055 from at least 23 investors, promising investors that they would earn a minimum rate of return and share in the profits generated by the successful “flip” of properties. Belson assured investors that the funds that they invested would be used only for expenses on the specific property in which they had invested, and that Belson and the entities would be paid only from the profits generated by the successful sale of the rehabilitated real property (and, in certain cases, through specifically identified development and management fees).
Contrary to those representations, Belson misappropriated about $2.5 million in investor funds for his own personal use and for the use of unauthorized business expenses. In addition, Belson misused investor funds by commingling them and using them to pay expenses on other properties for which funds were needed, rather than on the specific property that the funds were supposed to be used. In April 2016, Belson expressly acknowledged to one investor that he had misused and misappropriated investor funds, admitting, for example, that he had “wrongfully spent and/or diverted at least $1,840,000 of [investor] funds for the benefit of other projects managed by Jay Belson and/or his affiliates and personal expenses for Jay Belson.” In addition, Belson provided investors with return summaries that falsely inflated the returns the investor and relevant entity earned. On occasion, Belson, through one or more of the entities he controlled, paid those inflated returns to investors to make it appear as if his enterprises were profitable and to encourage the investors to reinvest.
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