After prosecutors say he helped bilk investors of more than $20 million, a disbarred Duke Law alum was apprehended in Mexico earlier this year.
Michael Casey, School of Law '76 and former president of a Fort Lauderdale-based commodities investment company, recently pleaded guilty to charges related to the multimillion-dollar fraud scheme.
The 71-year-old—who was on the run for four years until his capture this year—was indicted in 2012 on multiple felony mail and wire fraud charges for his role in Commodities Online LLC. COL is a commodities exchange company that falsely promised investors returns of 5 percent or more on various “pre-sold” commodities contracts—contracts supposedly tied to transactions with a buyer and seller already secured by COL.
In total, COL defrauded investors of approximately $27.5 million in investment funds, according to a 2012 SEC complaint. From 2010 to 2011, COL paid existing investors with funds from new investors, returning only about $3 million to COL’s more than 770 investors.
Casey pleaded guilty in September 2018 to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud after four years as a fugitive.
“COL and its principles claimed these [pre-sold physical commodities contracts] would generate predetermined profits for investors...Instead, [COL Defendants] dissipated millions of dollars of investor funds to largely sham companies,” reads a 2012 SEC Complaint against Casey and COL. “So-called profits they distributed to investors they took largely from other investors’ funds.”
Casey fled to Mexico in 2014—when he was also disbarred—and the FBI warned the public to consider him armed and dangerous.
After crossing the border years later, he was arrested in July in Houston and is set be sentenced Nov. 27 for evading government authorities and investment fraud.
According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Florida, Casey sold “shares of ownership in COL; subscriptions to access the COL website and COL’s investment opportunities; and investments in purported transactions to buy and sell commodities, such as fish, iron ore and sugar.”
By April 2011, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission obtained permanent injunctions against COL. In August 2012, Casey was criminally indicted on multiple counts of mail and wire fraud.
Casey was a successful practicing attorney in South Florida, working for Greenberg Traurig law firm from 2001 to 2007.
His legal experience led him to be COL’s outside counsel and helped him take over as president.
Following COL’s injunction in April 2011 and Casey’s subsequent indictment, he was disbarred from the Florida Bar in 2014. Eric Bustillo, regional director of the SEC’s Miami office, described him as “purported legal counsel who acted anything but lawyerly.”
COL’s former president, James Howard III, and COL’s former vice president, Louis Gallo III, also pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. Howard was sentenced to 15 years, 9 months in prison, and Gallo received a 14-year prison sentence.
Victor Rocha, the defense attorney representing Casey, did not respond to request for comment from The Chronicle.
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