On July 20, 2012, the OSC laid quasi-criminal charges against Abraham Herbert Grossman for operating a fraudulent fundraising scheme.
Between October 2009 and February 2011, Grossman and the Strategic Gifting Group—a sole proprietorship he ran in Ontario—operated the scheme and also offered donor introduction share gifting of Dixon Perot & Champion securities, which involved four Ontario charities.
Specially, Grossman and the company brokered introductions between the charities and the donors for a service fee of 90% of the donation. He then issued shares of DPC Securities, which were valued at an inflated amount.
Strategic Gifting received a total of $332,620 from the charities as a result of the scheme.
Grossman also ran the scheme while prohibited from trading in securities by orders of the OSC, and while he was in the middle of two unrelated trading and fraud trials.
He’s charged with breaching the trading restrictions placed on him by the OSC, along with facing the charges related to this new case.
A first appearance for Grossman is scheduled to take place on Thursday, August 23, 2012 at 10:30 a.m. in Newmarket.
The maximum penalty available upon conviction is a fine of no more than $5 million or imprisonment for a term of no more than five years.
Read: Big frauds have small starts and Charity fraud concerns abound