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Rockland County resident Ruless Pierre, age 51, of Nanuet, was convicted in Manhattan federal court of securities fraud, wire fraud, and structuring charges on Thursday, May 27.
According to the allegations contained in the complaint, indictment, and the evidence presented at trial:
- From at least November 2016 through October 2019, Pierre solicited money from investors of Ruless Pierre Consulting Group by falsely promising them that he would earn a 20 percent return on their initial investment every 60 days through stock trading.
- These investment contracts generally promised that the investor would be paid 20 percent interest every 60 days and that the investor could withdraw all funds from the investment with 30 days’ notice. Based on these documents and the false representations of Pierre, the investors understood that their principal and interest were guaranteed.
- During the course of the investment fraud scheme, Pierre fraudulently obtained over $2 million from nearly 100 investors. After receiving money from investors, Pierre deposited the money into one of his personal bank accounts or bank accounts of the consulting group.
- Pierre then transferred the money to trading accounts, where he engaged in unprofitable day trading. Despite his trading losses, Pierre repeatedly and falsely represented to investors, including in investment statements containing fictitious balances, that the trading was profitable and that their investments were growing as promised. In addition to losing their money, Pierre also used investors’ funds to pay for personal expenses, including luxury vehicles.
- Additionally, Pierre further concealed the truth from investors by using money obtained from new investors to make redemption payments to previous investors, in Ponzi-like fashion.
- In another scheme, Pierre embezzled money from his former employers. From approximately 2007 until February 2016, Pierre was the director of finance for two different hotels, which were owned by the same company. One hotel was located in Palisades, New York while the other was located in Armonk, New York. As the director of finance, Pierre was the signatory on several bank accounts held in the name of the management companies that managed the hotels.
- After August 2018, Pierre no longer worked at either Hotel-1 or Hotel-2, but he regularly wrote himself checks payable to cash from the Management Companies’ bank accounts. Specifically, from September 2018 through March 2019, PIERRE wrote over 70 checks to “cash” or “petty cash” from one of the bank accounts for one of the hotels for over $300,000.
Pierre was convicted of:
- Two counts of securities fraud, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison,
- One count of wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison,
- One count of structuring, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
Pierre is scheduled to be sentenced on Thursday, Sept. 9
“Ruless Pierre was brought to justice for callously lying to investors," US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Audrey Strauss said. "Pierre told investors their investment returns were excellent, when in fact he failed to invest investor funds as promised, generated losses when he did invest, and diverted much of investor funds to his personal use and to repay investors in a Ponzi-like fashion."
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