Orange County CA Man Surrenders in Alleged $150 Million Ponzi Scheme

By - October 29, 2013
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ponzi-schemeA man from Laguna Niguel CA surrendered to police last week on a warrant of $17 million for his part in an alleged Ponzi scheme that took in $150 million, which is the largest ever prosecuted in Orange County, California. The scam involved about 80 investors in Orange County who invested at least $21 million in a printing business scheme.

Before he turned himself into authorities, Adam Boskovich had been charged with a total of 32 felony counts.

If he is convicted on all counts of using untrue statements in the selling or purchasing of a security, plus if he receives the sentence enhancement for causing more than $100,000 in losses, he could go to prison for at least 40 years.

Boskovich is accused of running this scam as part of a much larger scam that took in more than $200 million around the country. The person who allegedly ran that scam is Gerard Cellette who used to live in Minnesota.

Cellette faces over 100 years in prison in California for a scam that he did from Minnesota. He was the owner of Minnesota Print Services, which he ran out of his home in MN. He falsely claimed that he had big printing contracts with big corporations and he was looking for investors that promised up to 15% returns on investment.

He showed potential investors offer sheets with the names of various corporate clients, prices of contacts and time periods when the investments would pay off, typically within 90 days. All of this was fake information.

Like any other Ponzi scheme, the earlier investors who bought into it got what they believed to be interest payments, but were portions of the money that others invested later. Cellette’s scammed clients were all over the US – in GA, MN, CA, IL, HI, CO and AZ. Many were located in Orange County CA. One CA investor visited MN and bought into the scam. He went home and convinced several others to join in and to also recruit their family and business associates.

Some of those investors in Orange County got suspicious when the payments started to slow down. They asked for certain financial records from Cellette. He is accused of turning over false documents as well. The three investors from Orange County flew to MN in 2009 to match the documents against bank records, which revealed the scheme.

Cellette stands accused of taking much of the profits of his scheme and buying luxury items, such as expensive cars, private jet time, and several homes that featured a bowling alley, a malt shop and a go kart track. He now is held on a bail of $21 million and has to prove that the money is coming from a legal source before he is released. His next appearance in court is scheduled for this Tuesday in Santa Ana

One of the three men from Orange County who went to MN was Boskovich. He said when he and the other men thought the scheme was for real when they started to work as unofficial brokers for Cellette’s program in Orange County and all through CA. They worked actively to recruit new investors.

But Boskovich went off on his own, as he did his own scheme by falsifying and misrepresenting information to investors to get more investment dollars, and to get higher commissions. He has been accused of falsely telling investors that he examined Cellette’s operations.

Boskovich has been accused of facilitating up to $17 million in losses by investors out of th $21 million collected from Orange County.