Court orders Sugarman to pay $10.2 million for role in defrauding Native American tribe

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ordered Jason Sugarman to pay $10.2 million for his alleged role in a scheme to steal money that was meant to be invested in Native American tribal bonds.

Sugarman and his partner, Jason Galanis, acquired control of two investment advisory firms so they could use client funds to purchase $43 million of tribal bonds, according to a complaint filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. While the proceeds were supposed to be invested in annuities that would benefit the tribal corporation and repay bondholders, the SEC alleged that Sugarman and Galanis instead used the money to acquire foreign insurance companies.

[More: Jason Sugarman barred from securities industry due to fraud]

“In its wake, the scheme left the investment advisers defunct, the European insurer in administrative receivership, the Bermuda insurance holding company delisted from the Bermuda Stock Exchange, the Native American tribal corporation nominally indebted for $60 million, and the pension funds with a $43 million investment in worthless securities,” the SEC alleged in its complaint.

The $10.2 million in disgorgement, interest and penalties resolves the charges without Sugarman admitting or denying the SEC’s allegations. Sugarman did not respond to email requests for comment.

The decision follows the SEC’s case against eight other participants in the scheme and criminal indictments against seven of those defendants, including Galanis and Devon Archer, the former business partner of Hunter Biden. Galanis, whom Forbes once dubbed “Porn’s New King,” pleaded guilty to securities fraud and is serving 15 years in a minimum security prison in San Pedro, California, according to Los Angeles Magazine.

Sugarman is a minority owner of the Los Angeles Football Club and the son-in-law of Peter Guber, the owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Sugarman is also connected with a Los Angeles Police Department investigation into the disappearance of Heidi Planck, an employee of Sugarman’s firm, Camden Capital Partners, who has been missing since 2021.