Scott A. Beatty, Commodities Fraud, New York 2016

Utah Man Pleads Guilty to Commodities Fraud in Manhattan Federal Court

A 41-year-old man from Roy, Utah, has pleaded guilty to commodities fraud in connection with a scheme to defraud over 49 investors of over $825,000 through foreign exchange trading.

Scott A. Beatty was arrested on April 21, 2016, and pleaded guilty on the same day before United States Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn in Manhattan federal court.

According to the complaint, Beatty engaged in a fraudulent scheme to obtain investments from individual investors purportedly for the purpose of trading in foreign exchange. He made false and misleading representations to investors, including claiming that he was using their funds to conduct foreign exchange trading when, in fact, he used only $125,000 of the $825,000 in investor funds for trading.

Beatty also claimed that his foreign exchange trading was generating consistently positive annualized returns as high as 43.9 percent when, in fact, his limited trading was consistently unsuccessful. He generated wholly fictitious account statements that he provided to his clients through a client portal on his website.

As a result of these misrepresentations, Beatty obtained over $825,000 in investments from over 49 investors, the majority of whom were Japanese citizens who were not authorized to trade leveraged, margined, or financed foreign exchange in individually managed accounts under the Commodity Exchange Act.

Beatty will be sentenced at a future date by United States District Judge Paul G. Gardephe and faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a maximum fine of $1 million, or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense.

The charges were brought in connection with the President’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force, which was established to wage an aggressive, coordinated, and proactive effort to investigate and prosecute financial crimes.

Mr. Beatty is to be sentenced after a future date. He is currently facing a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a maximum fine of $1 million, or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense. The total amount of money he obtained from investors was over $825,000 and the majority of his victims were Japanese citizens.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/utah-man-pleads-guilty-manhattan-federal-court-commodities-fraud-connection-foreign