The Record of Bergen County featured James Valvano, a partner in the New Jersey/New York offices, in a March 10 article on litigation involving millions of dollars in missing investments. Valvano leads a multistate team of Gordon & Rees attorneys representing nine investors in Robert R. Ammarell, et al. v. George Swan, et al.
In November 2012, the manager of a fraudulent national hedge fund, George L. Swan, died in a mysterious car accident in which he drove directly into a parked tractor-trailer in the middle of the day. Swan was managing over $6 million in hedge funds known as the Theory Funds after receiving a lifetime ban from the NASD. Upon his death, none of the investors were able to receive answers as to the location of their investments.
In January, Gordon & Rees filed an Order to Show Cause and Verified Complaint in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Bergen County, to freeze the assets held by the entities controlling the Theory Funds, cease all trading, and freeze all assets of Swan’s estate and all insurance proceeds.
The team prevailed on the Order to Show Cause, obtaining substantial injunctive relief. Significantly, the court entered an order freezing all assets held by Swan’s estate as well as the entity defendants involved in the Theory Funds. The court also ordered all insurance proceeds received by Swan’s wife, Kathy, to be placed in her attorney’s trust account; she may receive proceeds in excess of $13 million.
Gordon & Rees’s Feb. 20 Second Amended Complaint asserts claims against Swan and his accomplices under state and federal securities laws, fraud, and civil RICO. Valvano’s clients seek the return of their investments, which total more than $2.2 million.
Besides Valvano, Gordon & Rees attorneys on the case are New Jersey associates Dan DiMuro, Yao “Emma” Xiao and Jane Adele Regina, and Hartford senior counsel Thomas Blatchley and associate Joseph Geoghegan.
To read the Second Amended Complaint, click here.
To read The Record article, click here.