Ponzi, Ponzi, Who's Got the Ponzi?

PORTLAND, Ore. (CN) – The SEC filed three federal lawsuits accusing two men of long-running Ponzi schemes, and two attorneys of helping one of them do it.     Click here to check out Courthouse News’ Securities Law Review.     Yusaf Jawed ran a 10-year, $37 million Ponzi scheme through his Grifphon Asset Management and Grifphon Holdings, and in late 2009 attorney Robert Custis began helping him do, the SEC claims.     In a separate complaint, the SEC claims that attorney Jacques Nichols, “aided and abetted a long-running, multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme masterminded by Yusaf Jawed.”     And in a third complaint, the SEC claims that Lyman Bruhn, 50, of Vancouver, Wash., ran Sasquatch Capital Management and Pearl Asset Management, supposed hedge funds, as a Ponzi scheme for years.     Both masterminds began their Ponzi when they suffered losses, and began using new money to pay off old investors, and themselves, the SEC says.