The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced that the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California entered an order granting the CFTC’s motion for entry of default judgment against California-based John D. Black and other participants in his binary options scheme. Between 2015 and 2020 the scheme operated fraudulent binary options and forex commodity pools, misappropriated millions of dollars of those funds for personal use, and made Ponzi payments to existing pool participants with new pool participants’ funds.
John D. Black and affiliated entities Financial Tree d/b/a Financial Tree Trust, Financial Solution Group d/b/a Financial Solution Group Trust, and New Money Advisors, LLC; and his associates Christopher Mancuso and Joseph Tufo; as well as Colorado-based John P. Glenn and his law firm, The Law Firm of John Glenn, P.C.
According to the court order, John D. Black, Financial Tree, Financial Solution, New Money, Mancuso, Glenn, and Glenn’s law firm obligations to pay nearly $10.5 million in restitution jointly and severally; and Tufo to pay over $4.5 million of that restitution jointly and severally with the other defendants.
The order further imposes civil monetary penalties of approximately $5.4 million on Black, Financial Tree, Financial Solution, and New Money; $12.1 million on Mancuso; $680,000 on Tufo; and $850,000 on Glenn and his law firm. Finally, the order requires seven relief defendants to disgorge over $2.6 million they received from the scheme to which they have no lawful entitlement.
