You really can't make this stuff up. It's as if Bernie Madoff has replicated himself everywhere.
The SEC reports:
"The SEC alleges that Thomas L. Mitchell and his firm Mitchell, Porter & Williams, Inc. (MPW), solicited clients to invest their retirement money in promissory notes offered by two other entities he operates (Adivanala AA Investment Trust and AB3, Inc.). Many of MPW's clients are recently retired bus drivers from the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) who were referred to the firm by former co-workers. The SEC alleges that Mitchell met with the prospective clients and encouraged them to take their retirement pensions as a lump-sum payment rather than a monthly annuity, and give him the money to manage for them. Rather than investing the money into stock, bonds or real estate as promised, Mitchell instead orchestrated a Ponzi scheme in which money from new investors was used to pay interest to existing investors."