TWO financial advisers regaled Marilyn and Paul Johnson a few years ago with free lunches and dinners at local country clubs and a celebrity chef’s restaurant in Kenosha, Wis. AIMED AT THE ELDERLY Marilyn Johnson, along with her late husband, Paul, cashed a $120,000 certificate of deposit and handed the money to two financial advisers. The funds, managed by Endeavor Partners and Endeavor Capital Management Group, were “highly risky, unregistered securities,” the Securities and Exchange Commission later charged. The Johnsons and about 90 other Endeavor investors “were elderly and of limited means,” and lost a large part of their savings, the S. Peiffer, a New Orleans lawyer who represents financial fraud victims, said the problem was far broader than the Endeavor case, noting that at least $100 million had been returned to investors around the country after an array of S. On another front in Florida, Stephen Brace, 62, was sentenced last year to 25 years in prison after pleading guilty in state court to investment fraud involving restaurant seminars in Pensacola. read more

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