News Flash- SEC Brings Case Against Sterling Watters Group

The Securities and Exchange Commission hit Angelo Haligiannis and his Sterling Watters Group hedge fund with an emergency enforcement action for lying to investors about performance, complete with false documents, prospectuses and marketing materials. The fund's general partners, Sterling Watters Capital Advisors and Sterling Watters Capital Management, were also named as defendants.

"Since 1996," the SEC said in a release, "Haligiannis has raised at least $27 million in the fund by grossly misrepresenting the fund's performance to investors and potential investors [with] phony account statements that recorded fictitious quarterly and annual investment gains and account balances." Despite all these claims of success, the SEC said the firm was performing worse than it reported.