Report: Tommy Tuberville listed in fraud lawsuit

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I’m not sure what it is about head coaches and shady investment opportunities, but Texas Tech head coach Tommy Tuberville has now been linked to two of them in the past year. Tuberville was listed as an investor in former Georgia coach Jim Donnan‘s “retail liquidation company”, GLC, which turned out to be a Ponzi scheme. Now, Tuberville is the subject of Huntsville Times report that lists him as the focal point of a fraud case involving an Auburn-based investment company.

The paper reports a complaint was filed last Friday in the in U.S. District Court in Montgomery against TS Capital and its co-owners, Tuberville and John David Stroud. The document accuses the two of defrauding investors out of more than $1.7 million.

Details from the Huntsville Times

The 32-page suit alleges that Tuberville and Stroud mixed their clients’ assets with their own, failed to file tax returns, falsified client statements, falsified fund performance reports and “generally disregarded and violated customary practices and procedures followed in the hedge fund and security investments industry.”

Several plaintiffs, including at least one former employee of TS Capital, have demanded their money be returned, yet, according to the complaint, none of the money invested has been accounted for. The suit also states that investors listed “have reason to believe that most, and possibly all, of their invested funds have been misappropriated, improperly converted and/or squandered.”

The suit lists 16 complaints against Tuberville and Stroud, including “negligence or wantonness,” “fraudulent misrepresentation” and “fraudulent suppression.”

Yikes.

Tuberville had been involved with TS Capital Partners following his departure from Auburn after the 2008 season. Tuberville was hired by Texas Tech in January, 2010. According to another Birmingham News feature in 2009, Tuberville, “an amateur stock guru”, was looking to “drum up a little business for a big-time hedge fund run by Stroud Capital.”

Like most fraud cases, the company was exposed in the past year when investors started asking for their funds. Then, things started spiraling out of control. That prompted a report from the National Futures Association last October that essentially showed TS Capital had no money to pay investors.

“To date, the NFA has been able to confirm that TS Management and its affiliated entities have in aggregate less than $3,500 based upon bank and brokerage account records produced by Stroud to the NFA,” the NFA report reads.

Tuberville and Stroud didn’t return calls and emails by the newspaper requesting a response. What this means for Tuberville going forward isn’t known, but there’s a valuable lesson we can all learn from this: if someone you know calls you and the words “investment opportunity” come out of their mouth, hang up the ph0ne.

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