Court Orders Commodity Pool Operator Harris Bruce Landgarten to Pay Restitution in Fraud Case

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York has entered a consent order against Harris Bruce Landgarten of Old Brookville, New York, finding that he defrauded pool participants and commingled pool funds in violation of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) regulations. According to the court order, Landgarten operated the Tradeanedge Members Fund (TMF) commodity pool from July 2014 through March 2017, receiving a total of $150,000 from three participants. During this period, Landgarten incurred purported expenses and withdrew funds from the pool's account to reimburse himself. He failed to disclose these expenses and instead issued fabricated statements to investors misrepresenting their account balances by including the money he had already spent. On multiple occasions, Landgarten withdrew cash and made electronic transfers to himself exceeding claimed expenses by more than $10,000, thereby commingling pool capital with his personal funds. The consent order requires Landgarten to pay $91,000 in restitution to defrauded investors and imposes a $91,000 civil monetary penalty. Additionally, Landgarten is subject to permanent trading and registration bans, alongside a permanent injunction barring future violations of CFTC regulations and the CEA. In a related criminal action brought by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York, Landgarten pled guilty to attempting to obstruct an official proceeding. He was subsequently sentenced to 10 months of imprisonment, 100 hours of community service, a term of supervised release, and ordered to pay $91,000 in restitution. The CFTC advises investors that restitution orders may not guarantee the recovery of lost funds if the liable party lacks sufficient assets. Regulators strongly recommend verifying the registration status of any fund or trading entity through the National Futures Association (NFA) BASIC database before depositing money.