Estate of Ameritrust Exec to Pay $3.8 Million to SEC, Judge Says

The estate of Ameritrust Corp.'s former CEO will pay nearly $4 million and transfer the entire balance of four bank accounts to the SEC for allegedly defrauding investors in Korea, a federal judge said.

Seong Yeol Lee, who was the chief executive of Ameritrust and passed away in November last year, was accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2023 of raising more than $20 million from at least 2,000 people, while overstating its assets by at least $70 billion and failing to file required financial forms. The commission also said his daughters—Elaine Choung-Hee Lee, April Sue-Chang Lee, and ...