Fla. clan siphoned startup funds: SEC

A Florida family raised $48 million for a fintech startup but siphoned off much of that cash to fuel a lavish lifestyle, the Securities and Exchange Commission claimed in a civil lawsuit Monday.

Richard Liberty and his wife and cousin told investors they were investing in Mozido, a unicorn startup, but the money raised went instead to related shell companies, the SEC charged.

That cash was then spent on a dairy farm, private jet flights, expensive cars, multimillion-dollar homes and movie production ventures, court papers allege.

Mozido, once a high-flying tech company with a valuation of $2.4 billion, according to reports, was supposed to bring services to the underbanked, the SEC claimed.

Also involved in the alleged scam was Liberty’s lawyer, it is alleged.

Liberty, 57, also told investors that he pumped $45 million of his own cash into Mozido — but in fact invested nothing, the SEC said.

“The prospect of investing in a nonpublic start-up company may hold considerable allure, but buyers need to understand what they are buying,” Paul Levenson, the SEC’s Boston regional office director, said in a statement.

This isn’t Liberty’s first run-in with the law. He pleaded guilty in 2016 to making illegal contributions to Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign and was sentenced to four months in prison and was fined $100,000.