NEW YORK–The Securities and Exchange Commission charged a purported New York investment adviser Monday with defrauding investors in his start-up businesses by spending their money on illegal drugs, gambling and his own income taxes. The SEC alleged Stephen A. Colangelo Jr. lied about his educational background on a LinkedIn profile that he provided to some investors, hid past criminal activities, and falsely claimed to have achieved extremely high returns buying and selling securities. In one email, the SEC said, he boasted of having the best trading day of his life–being up over 400%–although he didn’t actually make any trades that day. Mr. Colangelo, 44 years old, allegedly misled investors on several occassions, while raising $3 million in investments for four start-up companies he created and persuaded three other investors to let him act as their investment adviser, receiving more than $1 million from them. Read more in the Wall Street Journal here.
