Crime & Safety
SEC Fraud Complaint Filed Against Western Springs Investment Adviser
Joseph J. Hennessy is accused of defrauding clients by misrepresenting the state of a failing fund and using investor money to pay off debts.
A Western Springs investment advisor based in Chicago is facing a Securities and Exchange Commission charge that he cheated $1.3 million out of his clients and used the money to pay his debts instead, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.
According to the SEC complaint, the paper reported, Joseph J. Hennessy, 51, of Resources Planning Group, convinced clients to invest in his Midwest Opportunity Fund, promising massive returns—but the fund was actually failing. The complaint alleges that Hennessy used instead used his investors' money to cover payments owed to previous investors.
“Hennessy made these promises, but betrayed his clients and others by using their money to save himself from financial ruin,” the paper quoted Marshall Sprung, deputy chief of the SEC enforcement division’s asset management unit, as saying in a released statement.
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