The Republic Group, Inc. Principals Charged by SEC | Goodman & Nekvasil P.A. May Recover Investor Losses
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that it filed charges against the former principals of a now defunct Florida-based purported “financial services” company for defrauding investors in their unregistered securities offerings.
The SEC’s complaint alleges that The Republic Group, Inc., through its president Gary S. Wykle and executive vice-president and securities salesperson Alejandro Cortes, raised approximately $9.4 million from at least 150 investors in Puerto Rico and Florida through sales of promissory notes. Wykle and Cortes allegedly told prospective investors that the purchase funds for the notes, which generally offered investors interest rates ranging from 2.5% to 3% per month, would be used to make short-term, high interest loans to travel industry businesses in the Dominican Republic. As alleged, however, Republic Group never used investor funds to make these loans. Instead, the complaint alleges that Wykle misappropriated more than $1.2 million in investor funds for his own use, and also used new investor money to pay monthly interest to earlier investors. Wykle allegedly also misused offering proceeds by paying undisclosed sales commissions totaling $1.28 million to Cortes. The complaint further alleges that Cortes illegally acted as an unregistered broker while offering and selling Republic’s securities, and that Wykle and Cortes sold the notes without registering their offering of securities.
Investors in The Republic Group, Inc. May Recover their Losses with Goodman & Nekvasil, P.A.
If you invested in The Republic Group, Inc., Goodman & Nekvasil, P.A. may help you. Goodman & Nekvasil, P.A., a St. Petersburg, FL law firm with a national practice representing victimized investors, has recovered more than $200 million dollars on behalf of victimized investors.
All our cases are handled on a purely contingency fee basis by Kalju Nekvasil, Esq., formerly regional counsel with the NASD, now known as FINRA. Kalju Nekvasil, Esq. has practiced in this area of the law for more than 35 years.
There is no charge for an evaluation of your case. Further, we handle our cases on a contingency fee basis. This means that unless we recover money for you, we charge no attorney’s fee. Unless you recover any money, you pay us nothing, not even the costs and expenses which the firm will advance on your behalf.
If you incurred investment losses with The Republic Group, Inc. and would like your case evaluated by a securities attorney (again, there is no charge for an evaluation and all cases are handled on a purely contingency fee basis), please contact us.