In a case that has been swirling around Houston legal and business circles for the past five years, the three former owners of Houston-based Premiere Holdings of Texas — which promoted itself as a high-yield investment fund to prominent Houstonian investors but spiraled into bankuptcy in late 2001 amid allegations of Ponzi scheme-type activity — pled not guilty yesterday in connection with their arraignment in federal court in Houston on securities fraud and money laundering charges in a 24-count indictment (you can download a pdf of the indictment here).
Attorney Ted Murray, securities broker David Lapin, and securities broker Jeffrey Wigginton are charged in the indictment for their roles in the promotion and sale of unregistered security interests to investors through Premiere Holdings between 1999 and late 2001. Although the case has been preliminarity scheduled for trial trial on October 30, 2006, my sense is that a case of this nature will not go to trial that quickly after indictment.
Premiere Holdings has been an item of local interest for quite some time for a couple of reasons. First, the company promoted itself as a high-yield investment fund to mainly wealthy and conservative Houstonians, and often advertised itself through several of the talk show hosts on the Houston conservative radio station KSEV. Moreover, Premiere’s business unraveled soon after the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, but that story flew somewhat under the radar screen of the local business media that was preoccupied with the demise of Enron, which was taking place at the same time. Finally, one of the defendants — David Lapin — is related to prominent Houston attorneys Jack Lapin (father) and Bobby Lapin (brother).
The Justice Department’s press release on the indictment is here and a previous press release on an SEC action against the three owners is here. A couple of Houston Business Journal articles on the Premiere Holdings case from late 2001 are here and here.