San Jose Radio: Financial Talker Fined $300K For Fraud

Barbra Alexander

A federal judge fined former KION 140 AM financial talk host Barbra Alexander $300,000 for a multimillion-dollar securities fraud, on top of the 9-year prison sentence she got last year.

The SEC sued Alexander and her partners Michael Swanson and Beth Piña in 2010, for allegedly siphoning $2.5 million from "fraudulent sale of interests in two real estate investment funds."

Alexander was host of the syndicated radio show "MoneyDots" and the president of APS Funding in Monterey, Calif.

She and Swanson promised investors 12 percent annual returns; Piña handled the bookkeeping.

Alexander and her cohorts took $7 million from investors, but the SEC said "a significant portion of the money invested did not fund short-term loans to third parties," as promised. "Instead, over a third of investor funds - $2.5 million of the $7 million raised - was siphoned off by Alexander, Piña, and Swanson and funneled to themselves and the various entities they controlled. Alexander and the entities she controlled received $1.6 million, while Piña and Swanson and the entities they controlled equally split the remaining $900,000 of misappropriated funds.

"For the second half of 2008 and all of 2009, while the three partners paid themselves at least $30,000 a month, APS Funding failed to make any legitimate loans. Instead, Alexander used investor funds to pay for her other businesses, home renovation, and for her radio shows, 'MoneyDots.'"

Alexander was convicted of 28 felony counts after a 10-day jury trial last year.