KAYSVILLE — The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is trying to retrieve $29 million from the estate of a deceased Kaysville man who allegedly swindled more than 50 people of their life savings in a 12-year investment scam.
From July 2011 until his death on June 6, 2022, Stephen Romney Swensen, 50, induced people to invest through his company, Crew Capital Group, promising a guaranteed minimum of 5% annual growth, according to an October SEC filing in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City. The SEC said Swensen told customers he invested in various securities and that Crew Capital “was one of the safest places to invest their money.”
Instead, according to the SEC, Swensen, “in a Ponzi-like fashion,” made periodic payments of fictitious earnings to some investors “and used the bulk of the money for personal expenses, including the living expenses of his family and his mistresses,” and luxuries including private planes and cars.
The SEC case names the Swensen estate and Crew Capital Group as primary defendants. It also names relief defendants — those the agency alleges received some of the ill-gotten gains — including three other businesses and his widow, Wendy Swensen.
An attorney for the defendants filed an answer to the case on Wednesday, denying all allegations of fraud and asserting that all the defendants acted in good faith. The Crew Capital website has been taken down and no ongoing issue therefore exists, the filing said.
Efforts to contact Thomas A….
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