Authorities charged Maria “Dulce Pino” Dickerson for operating a Ponzi scheme she allegedly used to fund a lavish life-style of personal jet journeys to Las Vegas, designer procuring sprees, and luxe holidays that she flaunted on social media.
An indictment unsealed this week alleges Dickerson, 47, registered a enterprise in 2020 in California, the identical yr she gained a Ms. Girl Nevada pageant. She named the enterprise Inventive Authorized Fundings, which was a ripoff of a equally named respectable enterprise that Dickerson allegedly catfished her traders with. She advised potential victims her enterprise loaned cash to attorneys to fund private harm lawsuits and promised mounted charges of return, authorities alleged. She additionally claimed to have monetary backing from two high-powered executives, together with the CEO of a multinational on line casino firm.
None of it was true, in keeping with the Division of Justice and the Securities and Alternate Fee (SEC), which each charged Dickerson with various forms of fraud. Dickerson additionally posted extensively on social media, displaying herself on non-public jets, with luxurious items and competing in grownup magnificence pageants. Dickerson really gained a Ms. Elite Nevada pageant through the time her Ponzi scheme was allegedly ongoing.
Authorities declare her jet-set magnificence queen picture was meant to deceive traders into giving her cash. Dickerson then spent tens of millions on herself, in keeping with the indictment. In 2021, she paid $93,000 for a Mercedes-Benz GLE350, and one other $150,000 in 2022 for a Mercedes-Benz EQS V4. She additionally spent hundreds at casinos and purchased a sprawling mansion in Sacramento for $1 million in money and spent $30,000 filling it with new furnishings, the court docket paperwork present.
Dickerson, who’s Filipina American, focused different Filipinos in her deceits, authorities alleged, and he or she used new investor funds to pay earlier traders to maintain the Ponzi scheme going. She collected about $10 million whole from 140 traders, in keeping with the indictment. Final yr, dozens of individuals sued Dickerson in Washington to attempt to recoup their investments, which ranged from $5,000 to $145,000. Filipina actress Rita Magdalena was ensnared within the Ponzi scheme, and posted on Instagram that a lot of her buddies in San Diego have been additionally buddies of Dickerson’s, which led folks to consider that her claims have been legit.
“By no means belief anybody,” Magdalena wrote final yr.
Dickerson now faces a litany of 24 counts of wire fraud, seven counts of cash laundering and a securities fraud cost. In line with the Division of Justice, she might withstand 50 years in jail and practically $13 million in fines and penalties.
“As alleged, Inventive Authorized Fundings’ operations have been neither artistic, nor authorized. This was nothing greater than fraud perpetrated towards retail traders, a lot of whom have been members of the Filipino-American neighborhood,” mentioned Monique Winkler, director of the SEC’s San Francisco Regional Workplace in a press release.
Dickerson’s lawyer didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
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