The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission took aim Friday at a pair of Texas lawyers—one with ties to a notorious patent assertion entity and another with Am Law 200 grooming—accusing them of furthering a multimillion-dollar scheme to cheat small business owners.
The SEC filed suit in Manhattan federal court against Jay Mac Rust, a Stephenville, Texas-based lawyer who also owns the litigious patent holder MPHJ Technology Investments LLC, and Christopher Brenner, a onetime Fulbright & Jaworski and Bracewell lawyer now at Houston’s Martin, Disiere, Jefferson & Wisdom. The SEC alleges that Rust and Brenner perpetuated a fraud by Atlantic Rim Funding, a purported loan company operated by “a convicted felon and recidivist securities law violator” who is identified in the complaint as “Individual X.” (The suit indicates that Individual X is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence following an unrelated criminal securities fraud prosecution.)
