"I am meeting with the SEC Monday and will be cooperating with them fully," he continued. "More information will become relevant subsequent to my meeting with the SEC attorneys at that time."
Sullivan, 45, joined the alleged Ponzi scheme company, Bridge Premium Finance, in February 2011 as its chief financial officer, according to the SEC complaint, which is on view below. The company solicited money from "unaccredited and unsophisticated investors" to purportedly make short-term loans to businesses so they could pay their annual commercial insurance premiums, the SEC states.
Sullivan and Turnock, who owns the company, offered high interest rates -- up to 12 percent annually -- and told investors that their company was profitable and safe, the SEC alleges. But the SEC says none of that was true: "In reality, from at least 2002, BPF has operated as a Ponzi scheme." The company paid the interest and redemptions due to investors "with money raised from other investors," it alleges in the complaint.
In May, Sullivan met with investors and told them that the company was "doing well" and "had more money" to make additional loans, the SEC alleges. But two months later, he changed his tune, the SEC says. In a July 20 phone call with an investor, the SEC alleges Sullivan said, "I have a lawyer and I shouldn't be talking to you. But I feel bad because you were just here in May. Your money is all gone. This is a Ponzi scheme."This isn't the first time Sullivan has been involved in money-related trouble.
In 1998, Sullivan was charged with five counts of theft for stealing from a laserdisc and DVD company he'd worked for called Lumivision Corporation. Sullivan was the bookkeeper, and court records show that between 1994 and 1998, he wrote checks to himself and made fraudulent credit card charges totaling close to $924,000. Lumivision went out of business and Sullivan pleaded guilty to a single count of felony theft. He was sentenced to ten years in prison, but ended up serving two after a courtroom apology.
In a letter to the court, Sullivan explained his actions: "I started taking the money from my company to try to make myself look better, to impress others, to gain admiration from friends, family and most importantly, my father.... Only after being caught did I realize just how wrong and illegal this whole thing was. I used to tell myself, 'This isn't hurting anyone,' when in fact, it did." However, when Westword contacted Sullivan in 2010 to ask him about the case, he said the letter was simply a part of his legal strategy. "I hired a very prominent criminal attorney in Denver, and I did what he wanted to do," Sullivan said.
Our 2010 story recounted several ex-girlfriends' experiences with Sullivan -- including a pattern of him borrowing money and using their good credit to finance pricey cars and live the high life. He dated several women at a time, they told Westword, which eventually led to a group of them banding together in an attempt to stop him. They dubbed it "Operation Cock Block." "He's the master of screwing people," one ex-girlfriend told us.
Sullivan is ordered to appear in U.S. District Court on August 23.
In the meantime, read the complaint filed by the SEC below.
More from our Follow That Story archive: "Top 10 bad boyfriends -- as inspired by Operation Cock Block target Bill Sullivan."
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