MANILA, Philippines – A federal grand jury in the United States has returned a 32-count indictment against a Filipino-American woman accused of running a Ponzi scheme targeting her fellow Fil-Ams, US authorities said on Tuesday, September 3.
Citing US attorney Phillip Talbert, the Eastern District of California’s Attorney’s Office said that Maria Dickerson, also known as Dulce Pino, was charged with 24 counts of wire fraud, one count of securities fraud, and seven counts of money laundering.
Dickerson is described in news reports as a former Fil-Am beauty queen who moved to the US in her twenties. The National Woman of Achievement beauty pageant website described her as a former Ms. Elite US Woman of Achievement in Nevada.
One of Dickerson’s victims who sued her is former Filipina actress Rita Magdalena, who moved to San Diego, California more than 10 years ago and married an American in the US Navy.
She has posted information about Dickerson and her complaint on her public Instagram account, such as this one below.
Dickerson, a 47-year-old living in Sacramento, California, is the founder of Creative Legal Fundings (CLF). The indictment read that Dickerson solicited investors through misrepresentations beginning in December 2020, promising investors fixed rates of return that “she knew she could not guarantee.”
She promised around 140 investors a fixed percent of return every month on their principal investment with additional compounding monthly interest.
Instead, Dickerson used new investors’ money to pay off earlier investors, and transferred investments from company bank accounts to her personal accounts to fund a “lavish lifestyle.”
She used investor money to pay for real estate, luxury vacations, designer handbags, home furnishings and appliances, multiple luxury vehicles, private jet rentals, and extensive gambling. Dickerson’s family also had access to some of the accounts where she transferred the money.
Investors paid over $10 million to CLF, and lost more than approximately $4 million during the course of the scheme.
“As alleged, Creative Legal Fundings’ operations were neither creative, nor legal. This was nothing more than fraud perpetrated against retail investors, many of whom were members of the Filipino-American community,” said Monique Winkler, Director of the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) San Francisco office.
Late payments in 2023
CLF was earlier asked to desist and refrain in a California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation order in November 2023.
According to this order, in early 2023, investors began noticing that their payments were arriving late or not at all. Dickerson began telling investors that CLF’s bank account had been frozen due to her bank investigating it for money laundering.
Some investors had already made formal withdrawal requests, but CLF allegedly refused to return the investments.
Around May 2023, according to the SEC, Dickerson shuttered CLF after running out of money to pay her investors, and opened The Ubiquity Group, a new company where she tried to raise additional funds and use similar misrepresentations.
If found guilty on all charges, Dickerson will face long prison sentences. Dickerson could face a maximum statutory penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each count of wire fraud, and 10 years with the same fine for each count of money laundering.
If convicted for the securities charge, she faces a maximum statutory penalty of 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $5 million. – Rappler.com