Investment Fraud
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has expelled John Carris Investments, LLC and barred CEO George Carris from the securities industry for fraud and suitability violations. FINRA found that the company and Mr. Carris recklessly sold shares of stock and promissory notes issued by the firm’s parent company using misleading statements and by omitting material facts. The firm and Mr. Carris also were expelled and barred for manipulating the price of Fibrocell stock. A serious investment fraud was investigated.
The panel found that the firm and Mr. Carris fraudulently sold stock and notes in its parent company by not disclosing the company‘s poor financial condition. According to FINRA, the firm and Carris investment fraud, failed to disclose that the company was out of net capital compliance. John Carris should have ceased operating when it was out of net capital compliance, but instead it continued to sell Bridge Offering notes to investors and used the proceeds from sales of the Offerings to fund its net cap obligation. Carris failed to inform investors that proceeds would be used for this purpose. Carris also failed to disclose that the proceeds from the securities sales would be used to pay for personal expenses. Carris also failed to remit hundreds of thousands of dollars in employee payroll taxes to the United States Treasury.
When confronted with his own damaging e-mails, Mr. Carris claimed that he never received or read his emails, which FINRA found was not credible.
