The Las Cruces Sun News is reporting that two men defrauded investors out of millions after hatching a scheme that led investors to believe they were putting money toward the next “iHeartRadio-type multimedia conglomerate.”
Read the release from the New Mexico Regulation and Licensing department HERE.
Sixty-five-year-old Dain Schult and former Las Cruces and Albuquerque radio personality 69-year-old Joel Hixon were convicted of fraud over $20,000, securities fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud, the sale of unregistered security, and the sale of security by an unlicensed agent.
The paper reports that regulators claimed Schult used his companies — American Radio Empire, Inc. and American Wireless and Entertainment, Inc.— to recruit radio personalities like Hixon, who would then solicit investments from friends and promise them employment. The paper also reports that Schult and Hixon “led investors to believe the money they raised was being used to pay for services aimed at funding an initial public offering of Schult’s company and they would purchase radio stations around the United States and put them on the internet.”
Turns out the feds say Schult was misappropriating investors’ money for personal use and paying Hixon commissions in the pyramid scheme.
Schult earned about $1.4 million strictly from convincing people to give it to him, according to the report.
