Quote from complaint:
From November 1998 until the present, Schoemmell and Thorkelsson, acting through an unincorporated entity known as the R.S. of Houston Workshop ("Workshop"), committed solicitation fraud while acting as commodity trading advisors. Schoemmell and Thorkelsson offered a trading course and methodology based on misrepresentations made on the internet and in a brochure that they traded Standard & Poors 500 equity index futures contracts ("S & P 500 futures") successfully for their own accounts using that methodology. However, neither Schoemmell nor Thorkelsson was a successful commodity trader. Schoemmell consistently suffered net trading losses in each of the six years he traded, and Thorkelsson made only an insignificant profit in one of several years he traded. As such, Schoemmell's and Thorkelsson's solicitations to actual and prospective customers were false, deceptive and misleading through their misstatement of facts material to the customers' decisions to purchase the trading workshop, in violation of Sections 4b(a)(i) and (iii) and 4o of the Act and Regulation 4.41(a).
Schoemmell and Thorkelsson also made statements on their web site and in a brochure sent to students and prospective students that gave purported hypothetical results of their trading methodology. In fact, however, Schoemmell and Thorkelsson's published futures trading results were based on after-the-fact selection of trades and entry and exit points. Therefore, they defrauded their clients and potential clients by failing to disclose the after-the-fact selection of trades and prices that rendered the trading results fictitious.2
FINDINGS OF VIOLATIONS
Solely on the basis of the consent evidenced by the Offer, and without any adjudication on the merits, the Commission finds that Schoemmell and Thorkelsson violated Sections 4b(a)(i) and (iii) and 4o(1)(A) and (B) of the Act, 7 U.S.C. §§ 6b(a)(i) and (iii), 6o(1)(A) and (B) and Regulation 4.41(a).
