Banned director facing criminal charges
A former director of Sydney-based Pegasus Leveraged Options Group, Craig John McKim, is back in court after being committed to stand trial on 40 criminal charges.
McKim, of Labrador in Queensland, was banned from the financial services industry for 30 years in April 2002.
He will stand trial in Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court this week after an ongoing investigation by the Australian Securities and InvestmentsCommission (ASIC) led to claims he engaged in 33 counts of fraudulently using $2,187,963 of client funds for his own purposes.
McKim is also charged with seven counts of making or using false documents, or copies of false documents, to induce consumers into investing in an unregistered managed investment scheme.
ASIC alleges the funds taken by McKim were withdrawn from an account that Pegasus held with the National Australia Bank and deposited into three gaming accounts between July 25, 2000, and March 1, 2001.
In April 2002, McKim was given a lengthy ban after an investigation by ASIC discovered he and the Pegasus group were operating a managed investment scheme in breach of the Corporations Act.
ASIC initiated proceedings in the Supreme Court of NSW to ban McKim after it found he and Pegasus had engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct in order to entice investors into the scheme.
At the time McKim was also managing Pegasus while disqualified from being a director because of previous criminal convictions.
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