Judge freezes Beckman's assets

A federal judge ordered an emergency freeze Tuesday on the dwindling assets of Twin Cities money manager Jason Bo-Alan Beckman, a man regulators described as one of the "ringleaders" in Trevor Cook's $194 million Ponzi scheme.

Steven Seeger, an attorney for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), said Beckman committed "serial violations of federal securities laws" in his promotion of Cook's bogus currency investment program between 2006 and July 2009.

Cook, of Apple Valley, pleaded guilty to fraud and tax charges last year and admitted to defrauding nearly 1,000 investors. He was sentenced in August to 25 years in prison. No one else has been charged with crimes related to the scheme.

Beckman, 41, formerly of Plymouth, disregarded numerous red flags indicating that the currency investment program was a fraud and continued to channel tens of millions of dollars of his clients' money into the program, Seeger said. Beckman and his firm, the Oxford Private Client Group, raised more than $47 million for the fraud scheme -- nearly a quarter of the total -- and $39 million of that was lost, the SEC's complaint says.

Seeger said Beckman and his wife, Hollie, took nearly $8 million for themselves and spent it on homes, vacations and fancy cars. For many of the 143 clients Beckman routed to the program, that money represented their life's savings, he said, and it was heartrending to hear them talk about how the losses have affected their lives.

"The investors' loss was the Beckmans' gains," Seeger said. "They lived the high life with the life savings of others."

U.S. District Judge Michael Davis, chief of the Minnesota district, convened the hearing by teleconference from Tucson, Ariz., where he's helping out in the wake of the fatal January shooting of John Roll, chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Arizona.

'Without saying a word'

Beckman, who goes by Bo, said he'd been unable to get satisfactory answers about the investment program's finances, despite his hiring of attorneys, accountants and computer forensics experts over an 18-month period that began in early 2008. Even so, Seeger said, Beckman kept directing his clients into the currency program "without saying a word" about those concerns.

Beckman's attorney, David Hashmall, told Davis that his client denies wrongdoing and is not liable for the fraudulent acts of others.

"What we have heard is a highly inflammatory version of the facts," Hasmall said. He asked for a three-week delay to prepare a defense.

"We have no fire to put out," Hashmall said.

Seeger said a freeze would stop Beckman from dissipating assets. He said it appears that one of his two Land Rover vehicles was sold recently. The Beckmans appear to have a couple of hundred thousand dollars remaining, he said.

Hearings set

Davis temporarily froze the assets of the Beckmans, Oxford Private Client Group, and related entities, and stayed other legal proceedings, including some pending arbitration claims. He ordered that overseas funds be repatriated.

Davis appointed R.J. Zayed of Carlson, Caspers, Vandenburgh & Lindquist as receiver. He set a hearing Thursday in Minneapolis to determine what living expenses the Beckmans might require. Another hearing on the SEC's motion for a preliminary injunction was scheduled for Tuesday.