The Securities and Exchange Commission charged a registered California-based financial advisor with her role in a $26 million real estate–based Ponzi scheme.
Alexandra H. Cock was the head of Wealth Plus, a firm registered in California from 2003 through December 2020. According to the commission, Cock first began recommending investments in the real estate portfolio of Professional Financial Investors (PFI) and Professional Investors Security Fund (PISF) in the late ’90s when she was a registered rep with an unnamed broker/dealer. PFI was a real estate investment management firm focused on residential and commercial purchases, and owned a direct or indirect interest in about 70 properties (including Judy Garland’s famed $3.5 million Malibu beach house, according to the North Bay Business Journal).
When Cock and PFI founder Kenneth Casey first met, they agreed that Cock would be paid a “referral fee” on each principal investment she brought in, a commission that often exceeded Cock’s typical advisory fee.
Cock would also charge clients invested in PFI securities an annual “maintenance fee”; according to the SEC. Between 2016 and 2020, as the founder of WealthPlus, Cock continued to recommend PFI and PISF securities to advisory clients, allegedly raising more than $2.5 million from dozens of investors.
But the Marin, Calif.–real estate companies were later discovered to be a Ponzi scheme that…
