By Bernard Vaughan
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A former Oregon gubernatorial candidate was arrested on Tuesday for his alleged role in defrauding investors who had hoped to buy shares of Facebook Inc before its initial public offering in May 2012, federal authorities said.
Craig Berkman, 71, falsely told investors he had access to scarce pre-IPO shares of Facebook and other social media companies such as LinkedIn Corp, Groupon Inc and Zynga Inc, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said in a statement.
But instead of buying shares for investors as promised, Berkman made "Ponzi-like" payments to earlier investors and funded personal expenses, including costs in a bankruptcy case, according to the SEC, which filed a civil case.
The defendant received at least $8 million from various schemes, according to U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan, which filed criminal charges against Berkman.
"Berkman blatantly capitalized on the market fervor preceding highly anticipated IPOs of Facebook and other social media companies to fleece investors whose cash flow he treated like an ATM to fund his own living expenses and pay court-ordered claims to victims of his past misdeeds," said Andrew Calamari, director of the SEC's New York office.
Berkman was arrested at his home in Odessa, Florida, and was expected to appear in a Tampa, Florida federal court on Tuesday.
The Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office charged Berkman with two counts of securities fraud and two counts of wire fraud. Each count carries a maximum of 20 years in prison.
In one allegation, more than 50 investors sent $4.6 million into a bank account controlled by a Berkman entity called Ventures Trust II, according to the complaint filed by the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office.
Berkman told investors the funds would be used to buy pre-IPO shares of Facebook, but instead the "vast majority" was transferred to other accounts Berkman controlled for his own personal benefit, according to the complaint.
Berkman has long been active in Oregon politics and served for a time as the head of the state's Republican Party, according to press accounts. He lost in the Republican primary for governor in 1994, and he explored a bid for governor in the 2002 race, according to The Oregonian.
The SEC's order details what the agency called a "recidivist history" for Berkman.
The Oregon Division of Finance and Securities issued a cease-and-desist order and a $50,000 fine against Berkman in 2001 for offering and selling convertible promissory notes without a brokerage license, according to the SEC statement.
In 2008, an Oregon jury found Berkman liable in a private action for breach of fiduciary duty, conversion of investor funds and misrepresentation to investors related to his involvement with a purported venture capital firm, according to the SEC.
Berkman reached a settlement with the firm, called Synectic Ventures, after it filed an involuntary Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition against him in 2009 for debts he didn't pay related an earlier judgment against him for $28 million, according to the SEC.
Rather than use his own money to pay the claims, Berkman spent more than $5.4 million from investors in his pre-IPO offerings to make payments in the bankruptcy settlement, according to the SEC.
The SEC brought a separate case against John Kern of Charleston, South Carolina, whom it said took part in the fraud as legal counsel to some of Berkman's companies.
Marc Blackman, a lawyer for Berkman, was not immediately available for comment.
It was not immediately clear whether Kern has hired a lawyer for his defense. Kern was not immediately available for comment.
The criminal case is U.S. v. Berkman, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 13-mg-00732.
(Editing by Bernadette Baum and Richard Chang)
weightless ellen degeneres jcpenney yeardley love nba all star reserves rock center christine christine
Not too long ago, we mentioned the launch of our sponsor Rockler?s Nordy?s first annual Video Contest. Despite the newness of the Nordys, the content drew dozens of entries ranging from inspiring, to comedic, to slightly disturbing. Summarized by Rockler, ?For over 50 years, Nordy Rockler has been inspiring A-List woodworkers across the globe. No matter how you work with wood, we are all inspired by the love of the craft. For the 1st Annual Nordys Video Contest, contestants were asked to demonstrate what inspires them to woodwork in approximately 2 minutes.? Rockler offered multiple prizes and broke them down into ?Academy Choice? (a panel of high-powered Rockler judges) and ?People?s Choice? (whoever could mobilize the most friends to vote for them on Rockler?s Facebook page). We have reviewed the submissions and are now adding a few honorary ?HomeFixated?s Choice? awards of our own. 
I got an email yesterday from a guy who seemed very excited about my company. He was a big fan, and wanted to ask me a few questions. As I read through the questions, I realized this was just a clever sales pitch. His email slowly and skillfully morphed from a fan letter to a pitch for his social media and marketing skills. A few minutes later on Facebook, another Shark Tank entrepreneur complained of receiving the exact same email. Then another. And so on.
The social media revolution has paved the way for several successful businesses to reach to the growing audiences. Research shows that more than 75% of consumer trusts other?s recommendation while they decide to buy products and services. The rest 25% trust the online advertisement. The actual value of social networks, amongst which Google+ and Facebook being the most influential ones,is their exponentially dominant word of mouth marketing.
Twitter is a blogging service. It allows the user to send messages to the ones who follow them and also answer any questions. Post registering the Twitter account the business owner can keep a track of what the users are updating as their status. Also they check timeline regarding what kind of people they should follow.Remember,when you sign up for a Twitter account, it is best to sign up as the name of your company, because customers are more likely to find out the name of the store rather than your own name.
The twitter feed is incorporated with Magento by embedding ?Twitter?s Widget? into the eCommerce site. This can be done by logging into the Twitter account and go to ?http://twitter.com/widgets?. The HTML provided within the Magento template is used to insert the Twitter updates in the store.
Although ?Get Satisfaction? is an unofficial customer support service still the Magento developer find this social network interesting. They create a link to sign up for a Get satisfaction account and then add this link to the store?s footer area, requesting for customer feedback. However, the number of visits the account can receive is limited. For the eCommerce owner to sign up on to this page, they need to open the store?s administration panel and opt for the?Staticblocks??option below the ?CMS?.After this they can select the ?Footer links static block?from the list.