Rochester Business Journal

The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed new court charges against Edward Tackaberry and also named Tackaberry in separate administrative action targeting Tackaberry’s  former boss in an alleged scheme to lure more than a dozen investors into sinking some $850,000 into questionable investments.

In a civil action filed last week, the SEC alleges Tackaberry defied its 2007 order barring him from the securities industry. The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Rochester last Friday, says Tackaberry pitched and sold promissory notes in three ventures—Charge-On-Demand LLC, Stucco LLC and Innovations Group Enterprises LLC—from 2007 to 2009.

Tackaberry said Tuesday the Sept. 21 court complaint closely mirrors an administrative complaint the SEC filed against him some two years ago and that he had inked a settlement deal with the SEC last week.

As of Tuesday, no documents memorializing that settlement were posted among online court records detailing the Sept. 21 court complaint’s filings.

Undated and unsigned copies labeled as a proposed consent order and proposed final judgment that Tackaberry emailed to the Rochester Business Journal on Tuesday state that Tackaberry, without admitting to wrongdoing, would agree to accept the court’s jurisdiction and to refrain from securities sales and to neither employ nor associate with other individuals engaged in securities sales.

In a separate administrative complaint filed Monday, the SEC charged Tackaberry’s boss in the alleged scheme, David Mura, with violations of securities law related to sales of the same promissory notes.

A onetime vice president and manager of J.P. Turner & Co. LLC’s Pittsford office, Mura was fired by J.P. Turner last year for failing to disclose outside activities, including the alleged scheme involving Tackaberry.  Mura could not immediately be reached for comment.

Mura formed Charge-On-Demand, Stucco and Innovations Group as an outgrowth of Rising Storm LLC, a company he had earlier invested in and later taken over after making death threats against its founder, Monday’s court complaint states.

Mura then violated securities law by selling unregistered securities to investors who were not properly advised of the risks involved and by employing Tackaberry in violation of the SEC’s 2007 order barring Tackaberry from the securities industry, the complaint adds. 

Acting in a civil suit the SEC filed in 2006, District Judge Michael Telesca in 2007 ordered Tackaberry and his former partner, Mark Palazzo, to disgorge $25.8 million as compensation for sums lost by 275 investors who had put money into private placements Tackaberry and Palazzo sold through their former firm, Pittsford Capital Income Partners LLC.

In court papers filed in the earlier action, Telesca described Tackaberry and Palazzo, who is not charged in the new SEC suit, as “trained securities professionals who repeatedly made false and misleading statements and omissions to investors, (who) knew what they were doing and…did it with fraudulent intent.”

In another filing, Telesca, without identifying a specific violation, said it appeared likely Tackaberry had violated the SEC’s 2007 order. 

As reported this month by the Rochester Business Journal, court documents record Tackaberry’s and Palazzo’s contributions toward the $25.8 million in restitution as so far totaling $324.75—$260 from Tackaberry and $64.75 from Palazzo—with no payments having been made by either until February.

Both are working in real estate sales in the Rochester area. Palazzo earlier this month did not respond to a request for comment.

Tackaberry could not immediately be reached on Monday for comment. In an interview with the Rochester Business Journal earlier this month, he acknowledged some activity in real estate sales but said he had not sold any properties and described himself as not having worked in three years.

In a 2010 ruling, Telesca cited evidence Tackaberry had then been earning $6,000 a month, was depositing money in his wife’s bank account and had taken steps to put assets, including his home, in his wife’s name. Though Tackaberry then claimed that the SEC was blocking his attempts to sell his house to get funds to repay investors, the SEC denied the claim, the judge added.

In the newly filed case, SEC attorney David Stoelting, who also handled the SEC’s 2006 case against Tackaberry and Palazzo, claims that despite having inked a 2007 promise not to sell securities or associate with securities dealers, Tackaberry worked as a securities salesman under Mura. 

The new lawsuit describes Mura as leading a small team that managed Charge-On-Demand, Stucco and Innovations Group Enterprises, and as instructing prospective promissory note purchasers to use Tackaberry as a first point of contact. 

J.P. Turner & Co. fired Mura, who is not a defendant in the court action targeting Tackaberry, in 2011 for failing to disclose outside interests, including the three LLCs, Stoelting states in the court complaint.

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