The Security and Exchange Commission announced on Wednesday that they had settled charges against New Hampshire resident Nickolas C. Skaltsis, an unregistered broker-dealer, based on his criminal conviction in a case brought by the NH Attorney General. A permanent injunction obtained against him in a civil suit brought by the NH Secretary of State was also settled.
The SEC also settled administrative proceedings against NH-based Liberty Realty Trust, an unregistered entity controlled by Skaltsis, based on a permanent injunction obtained against Liberty Realty Trust in the same civil suit brought by the NH Secretary of State against Skaltsis. Skaltsis and Liberty Realty Trust consented to orders barring them from the securities industry.
In January 2013, Skaltsis, of Dover, was arrested and charged with 19 felony counts of theft for operating a fraudulent investment scheme. The arrest followed an intensive investigation by the Attorney General at the time, Michael A. Delaney, the Dover Police Chief Anthony F. Colarusso, Jr. and Dover Police Department, and the Securities Regulation Bureau.
Skaltsis was charged with operating an investment scheme that solicited a number of individuals in the Dover area to invest in the purchase of distressed residential properties. Skaltsis was accused of making false and deceptive representations about those investments by representing that he would use the funds to acquire, rehabilitate and re-sell distressed properties in Strafford County to provide for the return of the investors' funds with as much as 14 percent interest on those funds, when, in fact, he did not acquire, rehabilitate or resell those properties but instead treated those investment funds as his own and failed to repay those investors. The total amount of loss to those investors identified in the 19 charges is alleged to be $287,000.
Skaltsis was convicted on four felony counts of fraud later in 2013.
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