FiberPoP owner ordered to repay $7.7M to SEC

OWATONNA — The final bill is in for lawsuit-plagued Owatonna businessman James Louks, and it isn’t small.

Louks and his company, FiberPoP Solutions Inc., were taken to court in November 2015 by the federal Securities and Exchange Commission, which claimed Louks had defrauded investors for years to raise money for his company, most of which he then lost investing in shady bank schemes. Even as the case was pending, court records show Louks continued raising additional money despite court injunctions to the contrary, and he was briefly jailed in October 2016 for failure to respond to a court order to repay $42,000 raised in violation of the court’s injunctions.

That unpaid debt is just a drop in the bucket compared to what Louks owes now. At a hearing in January, District Judge Patrick Schiltz approved the SEC’s motion, unopposed by Louks, to order him to pay $7,679,578.72, including almost $5.3 million in profits from the defrauded investors, and $2.4 million in prejudgment interest. Payment was due Jan. 27.

As large as that sum is, it could have been worse for Louks. Court records show the SEC’s motion for judgment in September asked that the judge in addition impose “an appropriate civil penalty,” which according to the motion could have totaled as much as $100,000 per person or $500,000 per entity for each violation. The ruling in January does not impose a civil penalty.

Read more: http://www.southernminn.com/owatonna_peoples_press/news/article_3e6bff43-f04d-564f-bf2f-3f220e1f8751.html

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