Todd Douglas Mulliner, Stock Options Trading Swindle, California 2021

SANTA ANA, California – Todd Douglas Mulliner, 61, surrendered to law enforcement officials this morning and is expected to make his initial appearance and be arraigned this afternoon in United States District Court in Santa Ana.

Mulliner is charged with four counts of wire fraud, two counts of mail fraud, one count of engaging in monetary transactions in criminally derived proceeds, one count of bank fraud, and one count of aggravated identity theft. According to the indictment, Mulliner was the president and CEO of DauVC1, an Irvine-based company, and from July 2018 to March 2021, he falsely represented himself to be an expert investor with a successful system for trading stock options.

Through DauVC1, Mulliner obtained money from investors by soliciting from individuals, usually family, friends, and acquaintances, to buy his company’s shares. At Mulliner’s direction, victim-investors sometimes transferred funds from their retirement accounts. Mulliner told his victims that DauVC1 was a venture capital company engaged in stock options trading, that they were buying an interest in the company, and they would share in the company’s trading profits.

Mulliner provided investors with a share purchase agreement, which outlined the terms of the investment by falsely stating that the victims’ funds would be used only for stock options trading. He further claimed he would receive a 20% commission on trading profits that DauVC1 generated.

In fact, Mulliner’s system for trading stock options resulted in him losing the majority of investors’ principal that he actually traded. He also used most of investors’ funds to pay earlier investors monthly payments based on DauVC1’s purported profits and to repay earlier investors who wanted to withdraw their money from the company. Law enforcement believes Mulliner caused at least six victims to pay his company approximately $290,000.

If convicted, Mulliner would face a statutory maximum sentence of 30 years in federal prison on the bank fraud count. An indictment contains allegations that a defendant has committed a crime. Every defendant is presumed to be innocent until and unless proven guilty in court.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/orange-county-man-arrested-federal-indictment-charging-him-stock-options-trading