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President-elect Donald Trump has agreed to a $25 million settlement to end the fraud cases pending against his defunct real estate seminar program, Trump University, the Washington Post reported on Saturday. The settlement eliminates the possibility that Trump will be called to testify in court in the midst of his presidential transition. It ends three separate lawsuits that made claims against Trump University, including a California class action case that was scheduled to go to trial later this month, as well as a second suit in that state and an action filed by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. Schneiderman said that the settlement includes a $1 million penalty paid to New York state for violating the state’s education laws by calling the program a “university” despite offering no degrees or traditional education. Trump did not, however, admit fault regarding the claims that customers were cheated. Read more.

For a further analysis of commercial fraud, make sure to pick up a copy of ABI’s Fraud and Forensics: Piercing Through the Deception in a Commercial Fraud Case.

West Virginia's environmental regulator sued Alpha Natural Resources Inc.’s former management on allegations of fraud on Wednesday, saying that top executives should be held accountable for an unusual $100 million funding gap that has emerged just three months after the U.S. coal producer exited bankruptcy, Reuters reported yesterday. The lawsuit accused six senior executives including CEO Kevin Crutchfield of making misleading financial projections about Alpha so that its bankruptcy plan would get court approval. After the plan was approved in July, the executives joined the management team of Contura Energy Inc, which bought some of Alpha's most productive mines. "In knowingly making or allowing to be made, false and misleading projections to obtain confirmation of (Alpha's) chapter 11 plan, each of the named individual defendants committed a fraud upon this court," the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) said in the lawsuit.

Victims of Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme will receive another $32.1 million under a new settlement over the swindler's ties to Cohmad Securities Corp, whose clients invested more than $1 billion with him, Reuters reported Friday. Irving Picard, the trustee liquidating Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, on Friday announced that the settlement with the estate of former Cohmad Chairman Maurice "Sonny" Cohn, his widow Marilyn Cohn, and their daughter Marcia Cohn, who was Cohmad's chief operating officer. Though Cohmad is insolvent, Picard said that he plans to keep pursuing claims against six other individuals who received "substantial fees" for helping Cohmad raise money for Madoff. Read more. 

For a further analysis of commercial fraud, make sure to pick up a copy of ABI’s Fraud and Forensics: Piercing Through the Deception in a Commercial Fraud Case. 

After deliberating for two days, a jury in St. Paul, Minn., yesterday found former entrepreneur Bryan Reichel guilty on 11 counts of fraud, but not guilty of concealing bankruptcy estate property, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported today. Reichel was indicted in 2014 on allegations that he lied to investors to get them to fund his start-up company, PureChoice. Last year, the grand jury added five charges alleging that after PureChoice closed its doors in 2011, Reichel tried to defraud the bankruptcy court. Jurors saw pages and pages of e-mails and heard hours of testimony from former PureChoice employees and investors during the nearly monthlong trial. They found Reichel guilty on seven wire fraud counts and four bankruptcy fraud counts. Read more.

Don’t miss next Tuesday’s free abiLIVE webinar “Administration of a Mega Ponzi Scheme Case: Receivership v. Bankruptcy.”

For a further analysis of commercial fraud, make sure to pick up a copy of ABI’s Fraud and Forensics: Piercing Through the Deception in a Commercial Fraud Case. 

Cortney S. Valentine of Liberty, Utah, pleaded guilty yesterday to bank fraud and false declaration under penalty of perjury and concealment of assets in connection with a bankruptcy case, according to a DOJ press release. Valentine was indicted by a federal grand jury in Coeur d'Alene on February 18, 2015. According to the plea agreement, Valentine defrauded U.S. Bank when he made material false statements which were relied upon by U.S. Bank and caused U.S. Bank to lend him $362,000. In the midst of the Valentine’s ever increasing debt and when creditors were attempting to foreclose on various properties, Valentine decided to keep the creditors at bay by filing bankruptcy. Valentine and his wife filed for relief under bankruptcy separately and in different states. In November 2011, Valentine contracted to sell a home to a third party for $1,150,000.  Valentine should have reported to the bankruptcy court any proceeds from the sale of the asset. Instead, he used the money to support himself.