Hedge fund manager charged for scamming investors out of millions
A Ponzi-like scheme that would make Bernie Madoff proud has been uncovered in Boston, authorities say.
Massachusetts officials have charged hedge-fund manager Raymond Montoya with scamming investors out of millions of dollars.
On Wednesday, Montoya was charged by the feds with mail fraud and wire fraud, and then released after his appearance in federal court.
Among the alleged victims are a tight-knit group of relatives, successful professionals who told The Post they put much of their money into the RMA Strategic Opportunity Fund LLC.
“Getting through all this has been tremendously emotional for me,” said Cathy Roth, 63, who told The Post she was conned out of as much as $6.6 million by Montoya.
“After my divorce 3 ¹/₂ years ago, the proceeds went to Raymond Montoya, and I don’t own a home or have any other assets,” she said.
She had to give up her apartment in a glamorous area of Newport Beach, Calif., when she could no longer afford the $6,000-a-month rent.
She then moved in with a friend to save money.
“I am thinking of applying to Starbucks to become a barista, to get some spending money and my health insurance,” she said.
Other members of her family had similar stories.
Her sister in Pearl River, NY, Joanne Roth, a retired schoolteacher, said she lost close to $1 million thanks to Montoya.
“It is a very difficult and distressing time,” Joanne said.
Another sister, Chris Roth, and her husband, both plastic surgeons in Columbus, Ohio, may also have lost millions.
She had planned to donate some of that money to a foundation she supported.
Instead of retirement, the couple, both in their early 60s, say they may have to work many more years to recoup her massive losses.
Montoya may have lured in investors by getting them invitations to exclusive parties attended by big names, including the glamorous Elton John Academy Awards party two years ago.
Cathy Roth, an accountant, was invited and remembered the thrill of riding in a limo to the fete.
She said being seated next to Hollywood royalty was intoxicating.
The feds charged Montoya claimed his fund managed more than $4 billion in assets — but never had more than $100 million.
Prior to the federal charges last week, Massachusetts state securities regulators, seeking to bar Montoya from the securities industry, charged him and his companies with bilking investors out of millions of dollars in the past decade.
Secretary of State William Galvin charged that Montoya fraudulently claimed the RMA Fund constantly made money and outperformed the Standard and Poor’s index by 134 per cent.
The funds were actually running at a loss at the time.
Galvin’s office alleged Montoya used some of his victims’ money — which he said would be invested in stocks and bonds, to pay off mortgages on the homes of his son and daughter, as well as on expensive cars.
Regulators also claimed that Montoya once had to make efforts to calm the fears of investors, telling them their concerns seemed akin to that of “the Madoff situation.”
“Montoya has used this money for his own personal benefit and that of his immediate family, to trade with limited success, and to make Ponzi-like payments to other investors,” Galvin’s office said in a complaint.
Montoya’s lawyer, David Chase, said that Montoya “is fully cooperating with the government, and is working to maximize the returns to investors.”
The US Securities and Exchange Commission declined comment.