Tampa Radio: Cox Personality Accused In Ponzie Scheme

Drew Garabo

A Texas-based insurance company and Tampa Bay radio personality Drew Garabo teamed up to market an investment fund to listeners that the Securities and Exchange Commission calls an egregious fraud.

WFLA-TV8 reports listeners Mary Hansen and Tony Decillis learned you can’t always believe what you hear on the radio. They are out big money.

“It’s horrible, it’s hard, I’ve been sick, I’ve been physically sick,” said Decillis, who invested $51,000 of his retirement money.

Day after day, Hansen and Decillis listened to WHPT 102.5 The Bone and PM Drive personality Drew Garabo endorse a company called C 4 Benefits Group and a remarkable product C 4 was pushing.

C 4 was hired by Texas businessman Patrick Howard to run a radio campaign to find investors in his Optimal Economics Capital Partners fund, or O. E. Capital.

“The worst thing that can happen to C 4 clients, even when the next market crash hits, is a 12 percent gain,” one of the radio ads stated.   One ad called the investment opportunity a “game changer.”  Drew Garabo told his audience when he heard the details, “It blew me away.”

“Drew Garabo himself personally endorsed them,” explained Hansen.

“What if your money could grow at a minimum of 12 percent a year.  Yup, you heard that right, the worst case scenario the minimum, 12 percent,” the ad said.

The Securities and Exchange Commission complaint states Patrick Howard and his companies raised more than $13 million by selling securities in O.E. Capital and other funds.  Twenty-two of those investors were from Florida.

Investigators claim the funds “perpetrated an egregious fraud on investors.” The SEC calls it a ponzi scheme.  Any returns investors received came from other investor’s contributions.

Mary Hansen was depending on that money for a badly-needed knee replacement, which will now have to wait.  And so will her retirement.

She has filed a lawsuit against C 4 Benefits Group, its directors, as well as Cox Radio, which owns 102.5 The Bone.