Studio City Man Faces New Fraud Charges

A Studio City man who was awaiting sentencing for having bilked thousands of elderly investors out of $139 million was charged again for offering securities and making false claims about a technology company, regulators said Thursday.

Cary Greene, 40, pleaded guilty last year to criminal charges stemming from an alleged oil and gas Ponzi scheme in the 1980s and 1990s in which investors were paid returns on their investments with funds from newer investors.

Greene and several other defendants also had settled civil charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1997 involving the alleged Ponzi scheme, without admitting or denying any wrongdoing.

As part of the settlement with the SEC, Greene agreed to be permanently barred from the securities industry, including being banned from offering securities.

Greene and the other defendants also agreed not to violate anti-fraud provisions of the U.S. securities laws in the future.

He was scheduled to be sentenced late Thursday in federal court in Los Angeles relating to the 1997 case, said a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office. He faces a maximum sentence of 15 years and a fine of $1.1 million.

Greene’s attorney could not be reached for comment.

New charges were filed by the U.S. attorney’s office and the SEC against Greene on Nov. 2 after he allegedly made false claims during a conversation with a U.S. postal inspector posing as a prospective investor.

Greene told the agent he was not a securities broker but was instead a founder of and a consultant to Broadband Concepts & Technologies Inc., a Glendale-based company with about 120 investors, the SEC said.

The SEC also said Greene made claims that former Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin and the royal family of Saudi Arabia were in bidding wars to buy Broadband shares through third-party companies.

The SEC, an investor protection agency, said neither Rubin nor the royal family had taken any action to buy shares of Broadband.

Greene is scheduled to be arraigned Nov. 19 on the new charges.