The company that employed Rey Rivera, whose body was found in an empty office at The Belvedere on May 24, sold investment advice that the Securities and Exchange Commission cited as “false” and that led to threats against the company?s owner before Rivera was hired.
A complaint filed by the SEC obtained by The Examiner charged that investment newsletters distributed by Mount Vernon-based Stansberry Associates “contain nothing more than baseless speculation and outright lies.”
According to a Stansberry Associates official who did not want to be identified, Rivera was employed by the company for 18 months ? starting roughly a year after the complaint was filed. Rivera edited a financial newsletter called The Rebound Report that identified the best “turn-around companies,” the company?s Web site said.
Rivera was not cited in the SEC complaint.
The complaint alleges that Frank Porter Stansberry, the company?s owner, sent an e-mail in 2002 that said investors could “Double Your Money” by investing in a company that was alleged to be on the verge of signing a contract to dismantle “nuclear warheads” for Russia. The newsletter offered the name of the company for$1,000, the complaint said. The complaint alleges that “the information was false.”
Karen Martinez, one of the SEC attorneys who filed the complaint against Stansberry, said investors who paid for the tip are angry.
“Many investors testified in discovery that they lost substantial amounts of money based on the investment advice of the company,” Martinez said.
“Investors said they were very unhappy,” she added.
An official speaking on behalf of Stansberry Associates said they had no comment on the SEC complaint. Martinez said Stansberry denied the allegations in court and that the case was pending, awaiting the judge?s decision, she said.
Friends and relatives of Rivera reiterated that he was a talented and thoughtful man who was not suicidal.
Sherrie Gulmahamad, who worked with Rivera at a Los Angeles film school and had known him for three years, described him as a screenwriter and philosopher.
“He left behind water polo students, film students, a giant circle of young people who loved him dearly,” she said, arguing that he was not suicidal. “Rey was not a depressive, neurotic type whatsoever,” she said.
Rivera?s wife, Allison, could not be reached for comment.
According to The Johns Hopkins water polo team Web page, he was an assistant coach for the team in 2005. He also played water polo professionally in Spain. Gulmahamad said Rivera had recently finished a screenplay called “Midnight Polo” that told the story of young Latino woman?s struggle to become a successful water polo player.
One thing Gulmahamad said surprised her was learning of Rivera?s job with Stansberry Associates as a financial newsletter editor.
“Rey was a talented screenwriter,” she said. “He had no financial or investment experience that I knew of.”
