A Burnaby woman who was fined and handed a permanent securities trading ban in 2017 has been handed a 90-day house arrest sentence for violating the ban.
Earlier this week, Enna M. Keller given one year of probation and a 90-day jail sentence, to be served at her home, for violating a securities trading ban handed to her by the BC Securities Commission (BCSC) in 2017 for her involvement in a securities fraud, according to the BCSC.
In 2017, Keller had been implicated in a fraud involving a company called Lexicon Building Systems Ltd.
Keller and Richard Lian, an American who also went by the name Richard Terry Ruuska, had raised US$3.2 million from 315 investors -- 140 of them B.C. residents -- in Lexicon Building Systems Ltd., despite the fact the company had been under a cease-trade order since 2009.
A BCSC investigation revealed Lian had spent US$2.4 million on things unrelated to Lexicon. Keller was a director for Lexicon between 1993 and 2007 and had served as CEO. The company billed itself as a distributor of a buildings material called Polyblock.
Although the company was listed as having its head office in Las Vegas, the company was an issuer in B.C. and its press releases at the time had letterhead with an address in Surrey.
The company went bankrupt in 2009 and was under a cease-trade order when Keller and Lian launched a scheme to raise money purportedly to bring it out of bankruptcy and get the cease-trade order lifted.
According to the BCSC, despite being fined and permanently banned from selling securities, Keller continued to solicit investments in Lexicon.
“After the BCSC decision, two of the victims contacted Keller to demand the return of money they invested with Lexicon,” the BCSC says in a press release.
“Instead, Keller provided the victims’ information to Lexicon and instructed it to issue shares to the victims. By doing so, she breached the BCSC order against trading in securities.”
Keller pleaded guilty on June 25 in B.C. Provincial Court to violating the ban, resulting in a one-year probation order and house arrest sentence.
