Conn Officials Preparing Legal Action To Force Positive Energy CEO To Pay $100,000 Bank Fraud Fine

 Fast-talking salesman Joseph Ventura, who pulled the rug over the eyes of state regulators by hiding his involvement in Positive Energy Electric when it was seeking approval to be an electricity reseller, will face having to pay a $100,000 fine for bank fraud.

Ventura was fined the maximum amount permissible by state banking regulators two years ago when he was found guilty of lying on his mortgage application – including using fabricated finanial records – while he was a mortgage origination official. His loan application failed to disclose he was a mortgage originator. If he had he would have had to actually prove he was making the $10,000 a month he claimed on his application.

He was fined $100,000 and an attempt was made to prosecute him criminally. But the state decided not to pursue the fine last year after the Attorney General’s office found that Ventura’s only asset was an old car. And the statute of limitations blocked criminal prosecution.

At the same time that the state decided to stop pursuing the fine, a group of investors was applying to the state Department Of Public Utility Control for a license to market electricity to residential and commercial customers in Connecticut. Initially an attorney was listed as the president of the company and Ventura’s involvement was not disclosed to the DPUC.

But right before the DPUC granted Positive Energy a license, according to records I obtained, Ventura secretly became president and CEO of Positive Energy. Since then at least one investor has complained to state officials that Ventura defrauded them and consumer.

James Heckman, the state banking department’s spokesman and legislative director, told me today that after his office read my columns about Ventura it contacted state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal’s office to see if the state could now seek to recover the fine.

“Once the agency learned from your column that Mr. Ventura was employed, we informed the Attorney General of this fact and began a new attempt to recover the fine,” Heckman wrote me in an email.  “The department has made a verbal communication to the Attorney General’s office to examine if we can recover the fine at this time.”

Blumenthal’s office said late today it was now preparing legal action to recover the money:

“After learning that Joseph E. Ventura is now the CEO of an independent power seller, my office has worked with the Department of Banking to investigate new means to recover this fine. We are preparing action to recover this money owed to taxpayers as soon as possible.”

 Under the state Freedom of Information Act I obtained access to the two-inch thick file on Ventura held by the Banking Department, including transcripts of the hearing where Ventura testified under oath about how he obtained a mortgage on his former Oxford home in 2003.

It includes fascinating information, including Ventura claiming that he just signed whatever he was told to sign by the loan officer providing him with the mortgage.

The documents indicate that it was Ventura who opened the can of worms by filing a complaint against Fairfield Financial, the mortgage company he worked for seven years ago and was apparently having a fight with.

During the hearing he admitted that he signed documents which contained false information, but said the information was not provided by him.

“The false information on those appliations were not provided by me,” he testified. “My mistake is signing the documet without paying attention to what was on the document or what that document contained.”

When cross examined about his claimed salary of $10,000, Ventura testified:

“Off the top of my head, I don’t know what it worked out to be be. I couldn’t tell you whether it was $10,000 or $12,000.”

Pressed on that claim Ventura  then testified:

“It could have been $1,000 a month, $6,000 a month and $12,000 a month.”

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