A hedge fund manager has been charged for a scheme that profited from dying patients

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Donald Lathen, a hedge fund manager at Eden Arc Capital Management, has been charged with a fraudulent scheme involving the terminally ill.

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced Monday that it is pressing fraud charges against Lathen and his firm.

Lathen alledgedly identified patients with less than six months to live, and got 60 of them to become co-owners of brokerage accounts. He is alleged to have paid $10,000 a time to use their name on accounts. 

He then pulled the money out as soon as those people passed away.

Here is the SEC on the case:

An SEC examination of investment advisory firm Eden Arc Capital Management uncovered the scheme alleged by the SEC Enforcement Division in an order instituted today.  Donald Lathen of New York City allegedly used contacts at nursing homes and hospices to identify patients with less than six months to live, and he successfully recruited at least 60 of them by paying $10,000 apiece to use their names on accounts.  When a patient died, Lathen allegedly redeemed investments in the accounts by falsely representing to issuers that he and the terminally ill individuals were joint owners of the accounts.  Lathen’s hedge fund was the true owner of the survivor’s option investments.  Issuers paid out more than $100 million in early redemptions as a result of the alleged misrepresentations and omissions by Lathen and Eden Arc Capital."

The SEC Enforcement Division further alleges that Lathen violated the custody rule by failing to properly place the hedge fund’s cash and securities in an account under the fund’s name or in an account containing only clients’ funds and securities, under the investment adviser’s name as agent or trustee for the client.

“We allege that Lathen deceived issuers by falsely claiming that he and the deceased jointly owned the bonds when the hedge fund was the true owner of the investments,” said Andrew M. Calamari, Director of the SEC’s New York Regional Office.  “Lathen allegedly put hedge fund client assets at risk by keeping them in accounts in his and the terminally ill individuals’ names rather than following the custody rule.”

Lathen was formerly a managing director and co-head of energy M&A at Citigroup, and a managing director at Lehman Brothers, according to his LinkedIn profile.

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