TAMPA (WFLA) – The ad by radio personality Drew Garabo of 102.5 The Bone said it all. “The worst C 4 Benefits Group clients will do even when the next market crash hits, is a 12 percent gain.”
A personal endorsement for C 4 Benefits Group and a product the company was marketing to Drew’s listeners.MORE: Drew Garabo listeners say they lost retirement savings to product he endorsed
“They will come to you for free, just like my man Jackson did today, flipped over an old IRA and now I’m making money and I’m happy,” Garabo told listeners.
Tony Decillis, 72, of Spring Hill, listens every day. He called C 4 Benefits Group. He got a visit from C 4 Director Darin Williams.
Williams told Decillis about an investment called O.E. Capital, run by Texas businessman Patrick O. Howard in Texas. The investment promised a 12 percent return.
“I thought that it was in the best interest of the client,” Williams told me when I asked why he steered clients that way.
In February, the Securities and Exchange Commission shut down O.E. Capital calling it “an egregious fraud.”
C 4 Benefits Group’s CFO and Sr. Executive V.P. Jackson Clements III insists no one has lost any money yet.
Tell that to Decillis. When he asked C 4 to assist him pulling some cash out of the $51,000 he invested, Decillis says he was told to call a receiver, appointed by a Federal Court in Texas.
“That’s how I found out there was no money. I called up to try and get some cash for some things I needed to pay, and he says, sorry there is no money,” recalls Decillis.
That stunned Decillis. Financial statements he had received showed he was making a killing with his investment.
“Come to find out that these are not true statements. They’re bogus,” stated Decillis.
So have the clients seen a 12 percent return?
“I don’t know, according to the SEC, they haven’t seen any return because the statements were fraudulent,” explained Williams.
So if the statements clients received were phony, what is that telling C 4 about the product it was marketing with Drew Garabo on the radio?
“Well, it tells me it’s kind of a mixed bag, in that we don’t know what the truth is,” added Williams.
According to C 4’s Clements, C 4 Benefits Group stopped marketing the O.E. Capital investment fund when C 4 learned the SEC was investigating the fund in April 2016.
Documents we have show in May, C 4 signed up Mary Hansen of Clearwater for O.E. Capital.
“C 4 Benefits Group knew,” said Hansen.
She has filed a lawsuit against C 4 Benefits Group, its officers, as well as, Cox radio, which employs Drew Garabo.
Cox radio had no comment, nor did Garabo.
The SEC charges that only a fraction of the $13 million that 119 investors put into the fund administered by Patrick O. Howard was actually invested. A final judgment that Howard agreed not to contest, found that Howard used a good part of the money to pay himself and other expenses not related to the fund.
According to Clements, lawyers fees caused by this mess wiped out C 4 Benefits Group and thus far, he and the company are the only real victims.
One-hundred-nineteen investors who don’t have access to their money might disagree.
If you have something that you think should be investigated call our Target 8 Helpline at 800-338-0808 or contact Steve Andrews at sandrews@wfla.com.MORE TOP STORIES: