Pantheon Business Opportunities Fraud Convictions
There have been convictions and restitution orders in the Pantheon business opportunities fraud.
"Jeffrey Kuba, a/k/a "Jeffrey Cooper" was sentenced to one hundred and eighty-eight (188) months' imprisonment, three (3) years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $18,064,018.78 in restitution. Blake Ladenheim was sentenced to sixty (60) months' imprisonment, three (3) years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $1,944,805 in restitution. Michael Press was sentenced to thirty-four (34) months' imprisonment, three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $1,962,645 in restitution."
The Department of Justice, Southern District of Florida Press Release can be read here.
Pantheon also known as the Internet Machine company was the classic business opportunity fraud. "Potential purchasers were told that for a purchase price of approximately $18,000, Pantheon would, among other things:
1. Perform all the legwork of the business;
2. That the purchaser only needed to plug in the kiosk and wipe it down periodically; find appropriate, viable, and high-traffic locations to place the kiosks; relocate any kiosk that underperformed;
3. Place national advertisements on the kiosk;
4. Only sell distributorships in a limited geographic area.
Further, Pantheon salespeople falsely represented to potential purchasers that they would earn their investment back in nine months to a year."
On the fact of it, these representations sound terrific because the risks of the business appear to be all borne by Pantheon. But if they are bearing on the risks, why do they need your money to buy the machines? The venture has no apparent risks - which is the biggest risk of all, that the real risk is hidden away from the investor.
The one thing that everyone should take away from the briefest of introductions to modern economic market theory is: risk and return are inversely correlated, a high return signals high risk. A guarantee of performance which appears to take away that high risk, is in fact a riskier guarantee. Performance will very likely fail.
Technorati Tags: restitution orders, pantheon, imprisonment, business opportunity fraud, 3 years, Jeffrey Cooper, Blake Ladenheim, business opportunities
