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Stock fraud scheme quashed

Two men are accused of bilking $2-million from people expecting a safe investment.

By JONATHAN ABEL
Published July 6, 2007

The victims were hooked by postcards, place mats and newspapers promising high returns on low-risk investments.

Thirty-three people invested $2-million in several dummy companies set up, authorities said, by Stephen Campbell and Robert Darren Carlson.

Campbell, 35, and Carlson, 41, were arrested this week on racketeering charges, accused of selling unlicensed and unregulated securities, stealing investors' money.

The scheme netted dozens of victims in Pinellas County, and some as far away as Virginia and Wisconsin.

According to the affidavit filed in Pinellas County Circuit Court, Campbell and Carlson told their investors they were using money to repair and resell real estate. They claimed it was a way of making high profit - as high as 17 percent - without the risks of the stock market.

Some investors bought into the scheme over the phone. Others would visit Campbell and Carlson in their Clearwater office. Sometimes the two would make house calls.

According to court records, they said their company was insured and that the profits were guaranteed. They didn't mention, however, that Carlson was under investigation for fraud in a similar scheme.

And they didn't mention that the investors' money was being siphoned into their personal bank accounts, authorities said.

Mike Leverso and his wife, Elaine, contacted Carlson on Oct. 4, 2002, after seeing an advertisement in the paper.

"The program that they put forth when we called them, when they came to our house, seemed like a plausible program, " Leverso, 79, said Thursday. "They had all kinds of guarantees. ... It looked like it was safe. Real simple."

The Pasco couple bought $50, 000 worth of stock in the Select Asset Management Group, one of the companies.

One day Leverso called the office looking for an IRS 1040 form and no one answered.

That's when he decided to call the police.

"We never got any money back from them, " Leverso said. "We're hoping the courts will put through some kind of restitution." But he wasn't optimistic.

Campbell, of Dunedin, and Carlson, of Tampa, used six company names, selling stock as Taylormade Equity Consulting, Gulfcoast Consulting Network, Gulfcoast Partners of Clearwater, Gulfcoast Advisory Services, Gulfcoast Investment Club, and Select Asset Management Group, according to court records.

The first fraudulent investment, the affidavit said, was on Aug. 6, 2002 and the last on Nov. 22, 2004. Some investors bought as much as $200, 000 in stock.

The case was the result of a one-year investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the state's Office of Financial Regulation.

Carlson has been arrested twice before on racketeering charges in unrelated cases, in December 2003 and June 2006. Until his arrest this week, he had been out on bond, said the FDLE, as the result of a racketeering investigation involving another investment company, Palm Beach Investment Group.

Carlson was being held at Hillsborough County's Orient Road Jail without bail, awaiting transfer to Pinellas County.

Campbell was being held at the Pinellas County Jail in lieu of $2-million bail.

Reached at home, Campbell's wife said she had no comment.

Staff researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report. Jonathan Abel can be reached at jabel@sptimes.com or 727 445-4157.

[Last modified July 5, 2007, 20:30:22]