SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Sept. 3, 2022 (Gephardt Daily) — A federal jury convicted a Logan man of securities fraud after a 3-day trial found him guilty of scamming his victims of $600,000.
Thomas Fairbanks, 69, now faces sentencing yet to be scheduled for his fraudulent activities as CEO and founder of SupplyLine Partners, located in Logan, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Utah.
Fairbanks offered and sold investment opportunities in SupplyLine to at least two Utah residents and collected money from them, according to the release, some of which he used to fund his own business enterprises and to make loans to a realty company where he worked as a real estate agent.
At trial last week in Salt Lake City, ending with the Aug. 30 verdict, federal prosecutors presented evidence that Fairbanks fraudulently represented to investors that SupplyLine Partners’ purpose was to work as a cooperative in funding the financial needs of local businesses, and then leveraging those businesses’ assets to generate cash flow.
SupplyLine was not registered as a business with the State of Utah, the prosecutors said, and neither SupplyLine nor Fairbanks were ever licensed to sell securities.
In order to induce victims into investing in his scheme, Fairbanks promised investors that they would receive a six percent annual return on their investments; that investors would receive an accounting on their investments; that investors could liquidate their investment at any time; that invested funds would go towards funding SupplyLine’s lending capital; and that SupplyLine’s investments were collateralized by assets of other businesses.
“However, none of these representations were true,” the Justice Department release said.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ruth Hackford-Peer and Kevin Sundwall prosecuted the case at trial. Investigators from the Utah Division of Securities conducted the probe of Fairbanks with FBI assistance.
