Kevin Scott Antonovich, a resident of Cherry Grove, New York, is to pay USD554,375 in restitution and a civil monetary penalty for violations of the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC Regulations.
A court order issued by the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York has also imposed permanent trading and registration bans on Antonovich, among other injunctive relief.
The court’s order stems from a CFTC Enforcement Complaint filed on 23 April, 2018, that charged Antonovich with misappropriation of customer funds, fraudulent solicitation in connection with investments in a commodity pool, and with registration violations.
The order finds that from 29 September, 2015, through at least 17 August, 2016, Antonovich fraudulently solicited and received hundreds of thousands of dollars from more than 150 pool participants in connection with pooled investments in off-exchange binary options. The order further finds that Antonovich misappropriated more than USD100,000 of pool participant funds for business expenses and his personal use, made false and misleading representations to pool participants, and fabricated documents purporting to show funds available for return to pool participants.
The order also finds that Antonovich told pool participants that his trading for the pool would occur on a CFTC-registered exchange when, in fact, all trading occurred on offshore platforms and that Antonovich issued numerous updates to pool participants falsely claiming that his trading for the pool was profitable. In addition, the order finds that when pool participants sought payouts from the pool, Antonovich falsely claimed that funds were available to be paid out and fabricated trading account and bank documents to give pool participants the false impression that funds were available to satisfy not only return of principal funds, but also payment of purported profits.
The CFTC Division of Enforcement staff members responsible for this action are James Garcia, Kevin Samuel, Alison B Wilson, and Rick Glaser.
