Business

John Thomas Financial being probed by brokerage industry, SEC and FBI

SETBACK: A firm founded by moneyman Tommy Belesis (inset), who joined Michael Douglas and Shia LaBeouf in “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps,” is the subject of a probe. (
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Wall Street brokerage firm John Thomas Financial, owned by flamboyant founder and CEO Tommy Belesis — who gained more than 15 minutes of fame from his role in Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” — is being probed by the brokerage industry, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the FBI, The Post has learned.

Agents from the FBI’s New York office have been knocking on doors of people associated with the firm, asking questions about JTF’s business practices, including cold calling by brokers and Belesis’ overseas accounts, sources told The Post.

“They were throwing a huge net,” said a person who was interviewed by the FBI about JTF and asked not to be named.

An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment.

The G-men also inquired about JTF’s dealings with Sam Waksal, the founder and former CEO of ImClone Systems who spent five years in prison after pleading guilty to an insider-trading scandal that entangled domestic diva Martha Stewart in 2003.

After being released from prison, Waksal founded Kadmon Pharmaceuticals, a privately held drug company that hired JTF to help it raise money.

The feds have asked whether Waksal recommended JTF buy shares of drugmaker Inhibitex weeks before its shares rose more than 150 percent after Bristol-Myers Squibb announced a deal to buy it for $26 a share.

Waksal, who has no official ties to Inhibitex, didn’t deny he made the recommendation but said the takeover offer was widely expected as it was part of industry chatter at the time.

“Everyone in biotech was discussing hepatitis C medicine at that time,” Waksal said in a statement to The Post. “There were countless media and analyst reports about value and M&A in this space following the Pharmasset buyout in 2011. Inhibitex and others are mentioned regularly, something a quick Google search makes obvious.”

JTF dismissed the FBI probe as the “fabrications” of an ex-employee who it recently sued for $20 million.

“Based on the subject of this story, we believe the source of these fabrications is a disgruntled former recruiter, a fraudster whose unethical behavior resulted in his termination for cause,” the company said in an e-mailed statement.

The FBI has also been poking around JTF’s dealings with Grandparents.com, which hired JTF last year to help it with a stock deal. The agents have asked whether JTF brokers told prospective buyers of the stock that media personality Regis Philbin had ties to the penny-stock company, sources said.

Separately, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the brokerage industry’s self-regulatory body, has been looking at the brokerage firm’s dealings in a small Salt Lake City coal company that hired JTF in 2011 to help raise capital, said a source.

In 2012, Belesis sought to take “operational control” of the coal company, America West Resources, after its shares fell 90 percent, to 20 cents.

The attempted takeover fell apart amid an ugly legal battle with the banker Belesis hired to work on the deal.

Both Finra and the SEC have been in talks with JTF about their respective probes, sources said.

JTF declined to comment on the Finra or SEC talks. No charges have been brought.

A spokeswoman for Finra declined to comment, as did the SEC.