LOS ANGELES (CN) — The former CEO of a Spanish investment firm will pay $8 million he got from a $200 million fraud scheme run by a fugitive hedge fund manager, and will appear to face criminal charges in the United States, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.
Sean Ewing, 51, of Dubai, was CEO of Absolute Capital Holdings Ltd., based on the Spanish island of Majorca. He agreed to forfeit the $8 million in a deferred prosecution agreement, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
Prosecutors who filed a criminal information said one reason they cut a deal is because Ewing agreed to come to the United States from the United Arab Emirates, "and he is taking responsibility for the actions alleged in the criminal case." The criminal case charges him with books and records violations.
The larger case involves Florian Homm, a fugitive, whom the government accuses of taking $200 million from investors in a stock manipulation scheme.
Ewing and Homm were co-founders of Absolute Capital. In the deferred prosecution agreement, the government promises not to prosecute Ewing in the stock manipulation case.
Homm was charged in 2013, and in a superseding indictment in December 2015, with "a penny stock manipulation scheme designed to pump up the reported returns of the eight Absolute Funds and alleges that the fraud caused investors to lose approximately $200 million," the U.S. Attorney's Office said. "The superseding indictment also charges Homm and the other defendants with money laundering."
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