New York Securities Fraud Lawyers Blog
Hector May, a former highly regarded member of the community in Rockland and Orange counties, is under investigation by several governmental entities. Reportedly, allegations include that Hector May misappropriated investor funds. In a Lohud/The Journal News article, Jenice Malecki, Esq. discusses how her clients and other investors have lost millions from Hector May in what she believes to exemplify a Ponzi scheme. Given her significant experience representing Ponzi scheme victims, Ms. Malecki finds many parallels with Hector May’s actions.
A Ponzi scheme is a type of investment fraud that relies on a constant money flow of new deposits to produce false “returns” to existing investors. New deposits are never actually invested and instead directly allocated to the schemer’s personal funds. Our clients, along with other investors, lost their retirement assets when Hector May sold unsophisticated investors what appears to be fictitious “tax-free” corporate bonds, an impossible investment. Hector May continuously increased his personal wealth at the cost of clueless investors losing their hard-earned life-savings. Eventually, Ponzi victims stop receiving promised returns, collapsing the scheme. It is very likely that Hector May was exposed from not being able to return money to a large investor. Ponzi schemes typically endure for as long as new victims continue to “invest” into the produced returns; withdrawals collapse them.
Operators of Ponzi schemes are often politically influential individuals who use their trusted status to manipulate unsuspecting victims into investing in false securities. In the same fashion, Hector May has been a politically prominent member of his New City business community for the past fifteen years. Hector May, who is 77-years old, appears to have preyed on people around his age who rely on their retirement savings more than any other age demographic. Hector May appears to have leveraged his vast community involvement to defraud many trusting investors who had minimal financial experience.
Hector May is not the sole one to blame for his investors losing their retirement funds and other savings. Hector May is the owner of financial advisory and planning company, Executive Compensation Planners, which reportedly generated over a million dollars from mainly servicing pension and retirement plans. Executive Compensation Planners had operated through brokerage firm Securities America Inc. for over 20 years. Mr. May’s New City office is reportedly deserted. According to FINRA records, Hector May lost his job as a FINRA- registered broker-dealer for Securities America Inc. due to allegations of misappropriation.
Undoubtedly, Securities America Inc, had the responsibility to supervise Mr. May and his office as well as the power to stop him from defrauding investors. Securities America Inc. will now be called on by investors who will challenge the execution of their required supervisor duties as outlined in FINRA rules. For that reason, Securities America Inc. could be found liable for failing to catch Hector May’s violations and responsible for reimbursing investor losses.
Malecki Law is pursuing actions to recover funds lost due to their lack of supervision. Government investigations will take a long time, but investors can more quickly recover their losses in FINRA arbitration. Malecki Law’s team of securities attorneys have substantial experience obtaining settlements and awards for investment fraud victims. Please contact Malecki Law if you had a customer account serviced by Hector May and/or Securities America Inc.