An interesting area of Alan Grayson’s history concerns his dealing with a small South Carolina financial firm named Derivium Capital LLC. In 2005, Grayson claimed he was the victim of a Ponzi scheme that Derivium engineered.
The Florida Congressman took part in what was known as a “90% stock-loan” program. Participants in the program received three-year loans of up to 90% of the value of any stock they put up as collateral. Upon maturity, participants paid back the loan plus interest and received the stock back. Any gain the stocks made during the loan term belonged solely to the participant. Derivium purportedly only made its money from interest on the loans.
The best part? If stock prices went down during the loan term, investors could surrender the stock and walk away with their 90% payment.
Over five years Congressman Grayson placed $29 million of his personal holdings, mostly deriving from his stint as President of IDT, with Derivium, for which he received $26 million in cash. Grayson used the money for various investments in Latin America.
Derivium made over $1 billion worth of “90% stock-loans” to more than 1,400 clients from 1997-2005. In 2005 Derivium unexpectedly went bankrupt. When the dust settled Grayson was out $3 million in cash plus $30+ million in paper profits. Grayson, a private attorney at the time, said, “It’s beginning to look like it may have been a very sophisticated Ponzi scheme.” Before going belly-up, Derivium claimed to have paid Grayson $600,000 in gains when he paid back his initial loans with the firm.
The IRS took a sightly different view of the whole affair and stated that while potentially a Ponzi scheme, Derivium’s practices also amounted to a “tax fraud scheme.”
http://www.usdoj.gov/tax/txdv07727.htm
From reading this, it sounds like Grayson most likely owes the IRS a few million, rather than Derivium owing him. The interest and penalties are accruing every minute. Questions are was he audited, did he pay taxes, and was he knowingly trying to evade income taxes? I hear there’s no statute of limitations on FRAUD.