The CFTC has brought charges against Charles Steven Goodie and his firm, CSG Commodity Service Group, a California-based unregistered Commodity Pool Operator (“CPO”). The Commission alleges that the defendants fraudulently operated a commodity futures pool, and committed registration and disclosure violations.
According to the complaint, Goodie and his IB solicited the public to invest in their commodity futures trading pool between May 2008 and March 2011. The defendants represented Goodie as an experienced and successful investment manager, which he was not, and claimed to at least one prospective participant that his own personal account was currently showing a profit close to $500,000, another falsehood. In this manner the defendants were able to solicit at least $494,000 from 15 individuals to invest in a pool specializing in futures contracts in silver, copper, natural gas, and oil.
However, the Commission’s complaint alleges, the defendants did not invest participants’ funds in a commodity futures pool as represented. Instead, Goodie spent the majority of money solicited on his own personal expenses. Another small portion of the funds were traded, but resulted in net losses for clients. In order to perpetuate the scheme, the defendants created false account statements showing profitable trading. In February 2011, Goodie finally told several pool participants that he had misappropriated investor funds. He promised to repay these participants, but at the moment has not done so.
The CFTC is seeking the return of ill-gotten gains, restitution to defrauded customers, civil monetary penalties, trading and registration bans, and permanent injunctions against further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC regulations.
