Mutual fund salesman jailed
Ex-calgarian convicted on 30 counts
Avictim of a mutual fund salesman sentenced to three years in jail for breaching securities law says she has trouble trusting people after she lost $10,000 to him.
Former Calgarian Jason YiuKwan Chan, 43, was sentenced to three years in jail this week after pleading guilty in provincial court to 30 counts of breaching Alberta securities laws, including fraud, making false statements to investors and trading in securities without registration or a prospectus.
“That was my pension money,” said 53-year-old Gina Avramenko in an interview on Wednesday.
“You don’t do that to people. I think he should get more ... I’m glad he’s going to jail. That makes me happy.”
Avramenko, a paralegal, said she met Chan in a Servus Credit Union branch and asked him for advice on how to safely invest a pension she received after years of service with the Court of Queens Bench.
According to the court decision, Chan told her he would put the money in a computer company called Comdev Financial, without telling her that it was actually a company he had created and controlled.
Similar ruses were used to accumulate $485,000 from a visually impaired 70-year-old, $315,000 from an 83-year-old woman living in a nursing home and $281,000 from three other clients — a total of $1.1 million, according to the court decision.
Chan used the money and bank financing to buy two real estate properties in Canmore and another in Eureka, Mont., in 2007 and 2008.
“Mr. Chan’s egregious conduct was not in pocketing the investment funds, it was in deliberately overriding the instructions of the vulnerable investors for the sole purpose of investing money as he saw fit, regardless of the instructions of the investors, and with indifference as to their ability to withstand high risk investments,” said provincial court Judge A.A. Fradsham in his decision.
The court document notes that some of the investors won partial repayment from insurance companies after legal action and one investor received funds from the sale of one of the real estate properties.
Avramenko said she hasn’t been repaid. She now works as a school bus driver, a job she enjoys, but worries about her future.
“I cry just about every night because I worry about the money,” she said, adding she has filed a civil lawsuit. “I’m trying every way I can to get it back.”
Chan, who had no previous record, has been permanently banned from trading in securities or acting as an officer or director of any issuer.
He was also ordered to pay restitution of $62,167 to investors — the court decision notes that there is $70,435 in a trust account but says there are other claims on that money.
The decision notes that Chan sold mutual funds and insurance products for various banks from 2000 to 2004. After 2004, he was self employed and, during a portion of this period, was licensed through the Mutual Fund Dealers Association.
It notes he sold mutual fund products through Investia Financial Services Inc. and Apex Credit Union (now Servus). Chan’s relationship with Investia terminated on May 1, 2007. The decision acknowledges that Chan, who is married and has a daughter, sold the two Canmore properties and the home he and his wife own to try to repay investors and settle legal bills.
Chan had been charged by the Alberta Securities Commission in August 2011 for illegally selling Comdev and Terra Nova Capital securities to several Alberta investors and making misrepresentations to those investors. ASC staff also charged that Chan engaged in conduct related to Comdev and Terra Nova that perpetrated a fraud on the investors.