“An investment adviser and his firm engaged in a $22 million fraud against hundreds of investors around the country and abroad, a federal agency said today,” according to a story in today’s New York Times.

“The Securities and Exchange Commission said that it had filed a complaint last week against Ian Laurence Renert and Hawthorne Sterling & Company, an unregistered investment adviser that Mr. Renert owned.”

“Judge Peter C. Dorsey of United States District Court in New Haven issued an emergency order last week freezing the assets of Mr. Renert and the firm, the S.E.C. said. Judge Dorsey also required Mr. Renert and Hawthorne to prepare an accounting of the money they took in and details of their assets, the agency said. The civil complaint charges Mr. Renert and Hawthorne with violations of federal fraud and securities laws.”

“Mr. Renert, or Wilton, could not be reached for comment. The S.E.C. said he was not represented by a lawyer, and there was no telephone listing for him or Hawthorne in Wilton.”

“If the S.E.C. proves the allegations, money could then be returned to investors, the agency said.”

“The commission’s complaint charges Mr. Renert and Hawthorne with creating a fraudulent $22 million offering of interests in unregistered offshore mutual funds. The S.E.C. said that from at least June 1997 through June 2000 Mr. Renert and Hawthorne sold interests in 30 entities known as the Hawthorne Sterling Family of Funds.”

“In all, more than 700 investors in 49 states and more than 100 investors overseas bought interests in the funds, the S.E.C. said.”

“The defendants, who used the Internet, offshore seminars and a network of sales agents, failed to disclose that Mr. Renert used fund assets to engage in day trading in Internet stocks, losing at least $2.2 million, and to finance a mortgage on one of Renert’s houses, the S.E.C. said.”