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Ash Narayan (pictured above) has been accused of defrauding QB Mark Sanchez, pitcher Jake Peavy, pitcher Roy Oswalt and multiple other athletes out a total of $33 million through a ponzi-like scheme. Reports from the SEC state that Ash swindled these athletes out of their money after gaining their trust with talks of his Christian faith and charity work.
Ash is now being sued by his former employees of RGT Capital Management, after they learned he had been funneling money from their fund into The Ticket Reserve, Inc.
Who Is Ash Narayan?
Ash Narayan is a former Managing Director of RGT Capital Management, before he was terminated for multiple reasons–one of which was an investigation by the SEC. Additionally, RGT claims that he was trying to sway some of RGT’s clients into investing their money into other endeavors.
According to sources, Narayan was encouraging RGT clients to invest in one or more funds which may not have been approved investments of the firm and which may have been unsuitable for those clients. RGT is, according to its filed documents, “continuing to respond to follow up requests by the SEC”.
So what were those other endeavors? While he was working at RGT Capital, Ash had already began working on the Board of The Ticket Reserve, Inc (TTR). TTR is a company that allows sports fans to reserve tickets for sporting events before the teams are announced. The biggest problem was that Ash didn’t disclose the conflict of interest to his investors, that he was asking for money to invest in a company he was on the board of.
Actually, no, scratch that. The biggest problem was that often times he would filter money from his clients’ brokerage accounts into TTR without their consent or knowledge and by using false signatures.
What Happened?
Ash is credited for raising almost 90% of The Ticket Reserve’s capital. The big problem is that it seems as though most of that money may have come from fraudulent sources. Take a look at these paragraphs from an article on Bloomberg.
In mid-2011, Sanchez agreed to make a $100,000 investment in TTR. Instead, Narayan forged documents and directed more than $7 million of Sanchez’s money to the ticket company, the SEC said. In total, Narayan transferred more than $33 million from all investors to TTR, earning almost $2 million in hidden compensation.
The vast majority of Peavy’s personal wealth–about $15 million–was invested in the ticket company without his authorization, he said. Mark Loretta, then a teammate of Peavy on the San Diego Padres, introduced him to Narayan around 2004-2005. Peavy, now on the the San Francisco Giants, said he trusted Narayan because he was a certified public accountant, which wasn’t true, and because he was very involved in charitable causes including churches overseas. Peavy said he last spoke with Narayan in March, and was promised he’d get all his money back. He said he’s yet to receive any of the funds used to invest in TTR.
It would seem as though all of The Ticket Reserve, Inc is complicit in the ponzi scheme as well. TTR was sending some of the new investment money they received to some of their older investors. The failing business had become dependent on these illegal cash infusions.
As such, the SEC has frozen all TTR assets via a court order, keeping Ash and the CEO of The Ticket Reserve from dumping their assets before trial.
So what did Ash Narayan receive in return for defrauding all of these investors? $2 million in hidden compensation. A measly $2 million.
What About The Players?
Unfortunately there’s not much that can be done to recover lost investments that have already been spent–a massive problem for victims of ponzi scheme’s because of the nature of the scheme. Get money, give some of it back to older investors. It’s practically impossible to get it back from those older investors who were themselves victims.
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