Christian Fiene and Erik Kiser v. Matthew Schweinzger was filed in the Northern District of Illinois on October 27, 2021, seeking damages of more than $500,000 for state statutory and common law claims related to the Defendant’s role in a Ponzi scheme orchestrated by Zachery Horwitz and his company, 1inMM Capital, LLC (the “Horwitz Scheme”).
The Horwitz Scheme defrauded investors by representing that proceeds from each promissory note placed in 1inMM’s offering were going to be used to purchase the rights of particular movies, which would then be licensed to major streaming services such as HBO and Netflix. However, Horwitz and 1inMM had no relationship with HBO or Netflix and had no plans to license any movie rights to those companies.
Plaintiffs Fiene and Kiser are two individuals who were duped into investing into the Horwitz Scheme. Defendant Schweinzger, the Plaintiffs’ former college classmate, is a principal of JJMT Capital, LLC (“JJMT”), which Plaintiffs allege was created for the sole purpose of selling promissory notes to fund the Horwitz Scheme’s fake film licensing deals. JJMT was paid 15% commission on each investment.
According to the Plaintiffs, Schweinzger owed them a fiduciary duty as an investment advisor and de facto placement agent for 1inMM. The Plaintiffs allege that Schweinzger did not bother to do any independent research or due diligence into Horwitz’s obvious Ponzi scheme, which was required under FINRA. If he had, according to the complaint, Schweinzger would have easily discovered that 1inMM was as sham. Plaintiffs claim they were justified in relying on Schweinzger’s representations when purchasing notes through JJMT considering that he was the CFO of a billion-dollar insurance brokerage firm at the time.
Kiser is owed in excess of $250,000 from JJMT, while Feine is owed over $243,500. Together, they assert claims against Schweinzger for breach of fiduciary duty, negligent misrepresentation, unjust enrichment, violation of the California Corporation’s Code, and violation of California’s Unfair Competition Law.
