Court issues $40M judgment against Al Parish over commodity futures trading

A judgment against former economist Al Parish, already jailed for more than 24 years for investment fraud, has been obtained by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, requiring him to pay $40 million and barring him from engaging in any commodity activity – ever again. The federal agency for regulating commodity futures stated that Parish “lied to customers and misappropriated millions of dollars in customer funds.” The U.S. District Court issued an order on 2nd February, stating that Parish and Parish Economics have fraudulently solicited about $40 million in investment for a commodity futures pool between 1986 and March 2007. Parish will be subjected to criminal judgment restitution obligation, in connection to an award of restitution and civil monetary penalties, in excess of $40 million. The commission issued in it’s statement that “Parish and Parish Economics misrepresented to pool participants that funds would be invested in commodity futures when, in reality, Parish misappropriated the vast majority of funds for his personal use”. Parish and Parish Economics also failed to provide required pool disclosure documents and provided false futures account statements to pool participants. He was sentenced to prison in June, and pleaded guilty to three counts of investment fraud.

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