A Rockland County man who promised annual returns of more than 100 percent from a fund he falsely boasted managed $50 million has admitted duping investors out of $1.5 million.
Solomon Lichtenstein, 30, of Stony Point, pleaded guilty to securities fraud on Wednesday, March 11, in U.S. District Court in White Plains.
According to the government, Lichtenstein raised more than $3 million by convincing more than two dozen relatives, friends and other investors in his Taraxa Capital Fund and Lightstone Trading Inc. that they were generating large returns through his trading and risk mitigation strategies.
But he used about a third of that to pay for his home mortgage, travel, dining and cash withdrawals. Of the money he received he invested only about $590,000, losing $213,000 of that on unsuccessful trades, according to court documents, and he used some of the money to pay investors to further convince them that the funds were legitimate.
He started up the companies in 2022. According to court documents, he told potential investors that he’d spent years “honing his skills in multifaceted trading strategies using market analysis and risk mitigation,” and boasted of making a 1,000 percent annual returns investing his own money.
Lichtenstein faces up to five years in prison at his sentencing, which was scheduled for July 8. As part of his plea, he agreed to forfeit $1 million and pay more than $1.8 million in restitution.
A parallel civil case brought against Lichtenstein by the Securities and Exchange Commission is pending. According to that complaint, the scheme ended in August 2024 when he ran out of investors’ money and told some of them, he had used their funds to pay personal expenses.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Stony Point man pleads guilty in investment scheme
Reporting by Jonathan Bandler, Rockland/Westchester Journal News / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
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