iPro Network summary judgments denied (both sides)
Both the SEC and defendant Daniel Pacheco have had their motions for summary judgment denied.
Both parties sought to get the upper hand via the filings, made in July 2021.
As per an April 4th order, the court found;
Although the SEC presents a strong case, a showing has not been made that the issues are purely legal and determinable on summary judgment.
Pacheco’s motion was filed on the basis iPro Network and its Pro Currency investment scheme wasn’t a securities offering.
Pacheco argued in opposition that PRO Currency was not an investment contract because it was given freely as a reward when customers bought “real products with real value”.
The court disagreed.
Material fact disputes exist as to whether Pro Currency or the I-Pro Network constituted securities.
Looking forward, should the case progress to trial we’ll have the “bundling a product or service to our Ponzi scheme makes it not a Ponzi scheme” ruse put before a jury.
I honestly don’t see that happening, as it’s practically a guaranteed loss for Pacheco (right).
Whether consumers were motivated by the PRO Currency or the educational materials should be a factual question reserved for a jury.
Pacheco also argued that consumers were motivated by the I Pro Mall, which, though admittedly never actually was accessible to consumers, purportedly was set to include $4 million worth of products that could be exchanged for the “reward” PRO Currency.
Finally, Pacheco asserted that there was a growing list of over 200 vendors that had interest in accepting PRO Currency as tender.
While the SEC has strong and persuasive arguments, the only way to address the material disputes of fact is to delve far into the particular details of the chronology of events and to discount Pacheco’s declarations, both of which do not seem to be questions of law to be addressed on summary judgment.
Put more simply, though the SEC’s case appears well-supported and logical, it does not appear that the triable issues of material fact have crossed the line from factual into legal such that a grant of summary judgment is appropriate here.
While it might not be suitable for summary judgment, Howey Test case law with respect to investment contracts and securities is pretty established.
Pacheco’s arguments about “products and services” are easily demolished by ringing up how many people invested in PROC outside of the MLM opportunity.
The answer is 0%, because PROC wasn’t available through iPro Network outside of the attached Ponzi/pyramid scheme.
As per an order made back in January, the iPro Network trial is scheduled for August 9th, 2022.
Update 24th June 2022 – Following a Joint Cast Management Statement filed on May 12th, the court rescheduled the August trial for January 17th, 2023.
Update 23rd December 2022 – Daniel Pacheco has settled his iPro Network fraud case with the SEC.
Was it a token?
PROC was launched as a cryptocurrency (Ponzi shitcoin). It’s long defunct.
iPro Network was modeled on OneCoin.
Is this Ponzi’s scheme? These are key issues for the court.
The Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment scam that promises high rates of return with little risk to investors.
The Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment scam that generates returns for earlier investors with money taken from later investors.
(Ozedit: spam removed)
lawyer Zoran Miljakovic
The court will consider securities fraud, as that’s what the SEC has charged iPro Network with.
Ponzi schemes and securities fraud go hand in hand but, and you should know this as a lawyer, it’s important to be specific when talking about what’s before the court (in general yes, the SEC went after iPro Network because it was a Ponzi/pyramid scheme).
Article updated with new January 2023 trial date.
I invested in this scam in January 18, lost over 100k. Bought their worthless E-trader also.
I also hold Kevin Harrington personally responsible as he was a major reason I invested after watching videos of him endorsing it.
I don’t understand why Harrington isn’t involved in the lawsuit. He can afford to pay back the $26 Million right?
Thanks for this article Editor, Awesome job.
Thanks for the support!
The SEC has gone after celebrities endorsing MLM Ponzi schemes in the past. Unfortunately I can’t speak as to why they didn’t pursue Harrington in this case.
I lost Over 50K with iPro network with the only reason on getting started being Pro Currency and they fact that Kevin Harrington was making ad videos about how this coin can be used for e-commerce purchases.
I wanted to sell the pro currency when it was high but couldn’t due to a hold on the coin. One day it spiked and the next it was basically nil.
Kevin Harrington was doing webinars for I pro network members talking about everything he accomplished and all the success he has had and why he was backing this coin and leveraging his huge network to make this huge.
Obviously that didn’t happen and I can imagine how many people got started because of Kevin only and the fact the was a shark and built countless companies to 100M +
Back when I lost the 50K during this scam it was all I had and it destroyed me. Dad got cancer shortly after that and couldn’t even afford to help him and it was the worst experience of my life as a young man starting out in life.
When this scum of the earth is brought to justice will we get back what we put in as far as the different so called packages?
There’s been no talk of restitution in the iPro Network case yet.
I lost like $80,000 and have no idea what to do to partner up with any class action lawsuit. Anyone have ideas or contact info.
These guys need to pay hard for this brutal Con. Even Kevin Harrington deserves to get hit hard for partnering up and making ads and doing live webinars to get people to join for the coins.
Class-action lawsuits require a lawyer. Lawyers can be found through Google.
Nobody is going to give you a lazy “click a button” class-action lawsuit.
Isn’t their an existing one tho? Specific lawyer who is representing a bunch of people who were scammed?
I don’t recall an iPro Network class action. If there was one it didn’t go anywhere.