SEC Charges Prominent Pastor, Financial Planner in Scheme to Defraud Elderly Investors

The Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday charged the pastor of one of the largest Protestant churches in the country and a self-described financial planner in a scheme to defraud elderly investors by selling them interests in defunct, pre-Revolutionary Chinese bonds. The SEC's complaint alleges that, in 2013 and 2014, Kirbyjon Caldwell, Senior Pastor at Windsor Village United Methodist Church in Houston, and Gregory Alan Smith, a self-described financial planner who the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has barred from the broker-dealer business since 2010, targeted vulnerable and elderly investors with false assurances that the bonds—collectible memorabilia with no meaningful investment value—were worth millions of dollars.