SEC Charges Californian With Operating Ponzi Scheme Targeting the Filipino-American Community

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged 47-year-old Maria Dulce Pino Dickerson and her companies Creative Legal Fundings in CA and The Ubiquity Group LLC with raising approximately $7 million from more than 130 investors through a fraudulent securities offering targeting members of the Filipino-American community across the United States.

According to the SEC’s complaint, from approximately March 2021 through May 2023, Sacramento, Calif., resident Dickerson convinced investors to acquire interests in Creative Legal Fundings by falsely claiming that she would use their investments to make loans to personal injury attorneys to fund their lawsuits.

She allegedly started her scheme by soliciting small investments from friends, who recommended the Creative Legal Fundings investment to other potential investors. Dickerson then allegedly broadened her efforts to reach new investors by organizing in-person meetings, telephone calls, and online videoconferences during which she discussed the purported merits of investing in Creative Legal Fundings with potential investors. In particular, Dickerson, who is Filipino American, targeted other Filipino Americans with her investment pitch.

During the meetings and calls, Dickerson claimed that she used her own expertise to pick which attorneys would receive loans from the company. Moreover, she falsely told investors that two high-profile individuals – the CEO of a well-known global hospitality and entertainment company and a former biotechnology executive – had helped co-found Creative Legal Fundings with her and had already invested $3.52 million. To further the false illusion that Creative Legal Fundings was a real business, Dickerson misleadingly directed some investors to the website of a legitimate California-based company with a similar name that does in fact provide loans to personal injury attorneys. And to suggest that Creative Legal Fundings was a successful, lucrative business, Dickerson also highlighted her own lavish lifestyle in social media posts.

In exchange for investors’ contributions, Dickerson allegedly claimed that Creative Legal Fundings would receive a portion of any eventual settlements or recoveries. According to the complaint, Dickerson promised investors guaranteed high returns of 10% to 17.5% per month. In reality, the complaint alleges, Creative Legal Fundings did not make any loans, conduct any other business, or generate any returns.

Instead, Dickerson allegedly spent at least $2.5 million in investor funds on personal real estate, gambling, travel, and designer goods purchases. The complaint also alleges that Dickerson made Ponzi-like payments to earlier investors using funds from new investors in an attempt to keep the scheme going. The complaint further alleges that, after Dickerson ran out of money to pay Creative Legal Fundings’ investors in around May 2023, she shuttered that company, opened The Ubiquity Group, and tried to raise additional funds using similar misrepresentations.

According to the complaint, at least one investor rolled his prior investment of $250,000 in Creative Legal Fundings – along with the purported earnings that he had accrued from Creative Legal Fundings’ guaranteed monthly returns – into Ubiquity. According to the contract, the value of that investor’s investment had supposedly ballooned to $2.5 million due to the fake monthly returns from Creative Legal Fundings.

“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 C. Winkler, director of the SEC’s San Francisco office.

The SEC’s complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, charges Dickerson, Creative Legal Fundings, and The Ubiquity Group with violating the antifraud and registration provisions of the federal securities laws. The SEC seeks permanent injunctions, including conduct-based injunctions, disgorgement with prejudgment interest, and civil penalties. The SEC also seeks an officer-and-director bar against Dickerson.

The SEC’s investigation was part of the San Francisco office and Los Angeles office’s task force focused on affinity frauds, the Western Alliance to Protect Targeted Communities. In a parallel action, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California also announced criminal charges against Dickerson.

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