The Pitch: Veterans, Hard Money, and the American Dream of Passive Income

Christopher Aubin built his scheme on the most trustworthy foundation he could find: himself. According to the SEC’s complaint, Aubin is a 30-year-old U.S. Marine Corps veteran who incorporated Anchor State Investments LLC on May 11, 2023 in Rhode Island. The company was organized around a concept that sounds legitimate enough on the surface: hard money lending. Hard money loans are short-term, property-secured loans that real estate developers and flippers use when they need capital fast and can’t wait for a traditional bank. The lender takes on more risk but earns higher interest. Investors who back those loans collect a share of that interest. It’s a real industry. Aubin dressed his fraud in its clothing.

Anchor State’s website, captured by the SEC around June 22, 2024, advertised “Access To Capital When You Need It” and promised “Tailored Financial Planning from Accredited Professionals.” By September 21, 2024, the site called Anchor State “Your Trusted Partner in Financial Success” and listed investment attributes including stability, cash flow, amortization, tax benefits, leverage, and appreciation, all framed around real estate investment. There was even a “Frequently Asked Questions” section that asked, “How Can I Determine Which Investment Opportunity is Right for Me?” This was a professionally built front door for a house with nothing behind it.

The pitch Aubin delivered in person was precise and detailed. He told investors they could choose specific loan projects to finance. He handed out lists of available loans with terms, interest rates, points, loan lengths, and project descriptions. These lists described projects like “driveway in Smithfield,” “septic system putnam,” “lot clearing in foster,” and “addition in warwick RI.” Investors were given the illusion of agency. They felt like they were making informed choices about where their money would go. That feeling was manufactured.

Investment contracts were formalized documents titled “Investment Contracts,” “Partner Contracts,” or “Real Estate Partner Contracts.” They promised returns between 12% and 19% for investment periods of one to eight months. The contracts explicitly stated that Anchor State was “engaged in the business of LENDING” and that investor funds would be used to “fund this event” with the hardcoded promise that “[n]o other expenses may be paid for with the Funds the Investor provides the Company.” That sentence was a lie written directly into every contract Aubin signed.

The Marine Corps credential was the cornerstone of his social credibility. The SEC complaint specifically notes that Aubin’s sales pitch included “his trustworthiness as a Marine Corps veteran” and that at least two of his 24 identified investors were fellow veterans who had served with him. The betrayal embedded in that fact is specific and serious. People who served in combat alongside someone trust that person with their lives. Aubin converted that trust into a transaction and then stole from it.

The Non-Financial Ledger: What The Numbers Can’t Capture

The SEC complaint tallies dollars. It logs wire transfers, check amounts, and bank account balances. What it cannot fully render is the experience of trusting someone, handing them your money, watching the due date arrive and pass, and then sitting across from a stream of excuses that never stop long enough to become honesty. That is the ledger this section keeps. Twenty-four people, at minimum. More than two years of ongoing lies. These are their stories, as close to verbatim as a federal court document allows.

Investor 1 put in $50,000 on August 26, 2024. The contract promised a 12% return maturing on September 30, 2024. That is a one-month window. Aubin told Investor 1 verbally that his money would go toward a hard money loan for a land purchase and that Anchor State was in “first position” on the property. When the maturity date arrived, Aubin didn’t go silent. He did something more insidious: he performed repayment. He told Investor 1 the land deal had closed. He sent a screenshot from his banking system showing a $56,000 wire transfer in process. According to the SEC, that screenshot was fabricated. The wire never arrived. Then came the explanation: Aubin said he had changed banks and his account had been flagged. Then a check was promised. The check never arrived. This is a textbook pattern of delay-and-excuse that keeps a victim engaged without ever delivering resolution. Bank records confirm that Investor 1’s $50,000 was routed to another investor and to Aubin’s personal account. Not one dollar went to the land loan Aubin described.

Investor 2 wired $145,500 on January 4, 2024, with a maturity date of April 4, 2024. Before the investment, Anchor State sent Investor 2 a “Loans for investment as of January 2nd, 2024” document listing five specific projects, each with its own interest rate, length, and purpose. Investor 2 chose five projects. He received a formal account statement showing he was owed $171,553.75 in principal and profit. That document was a fabrication too. Bank records show his funds were combined with another investor’s money and routed in a $294,629 transfer to a title and closing company, along with transfers to another investor, cash withdrawals, and two transfers to Aubin’s personal account. None of the five projects he chose were funded. When Investor 2 tried to collect, Aubin left him a check for $144,708.75. That check bounced. The SEC states explicitly that “at the time Aubin provided this check to Investor 2, he knew or was reckless in not knowing it would bounce because Anchor State’s accounts were not even close to containing sufficient funds to pay it.” Aubin then told Investor 2 he had “gotten in over his head with a social media influencer circle,” that he had problems caused by investor lawsuits, and that an attorney had taken his money. These excuses are a rotating cast of explanations designed to extend the waiting period indefinitely while transferring the emotional burden of resolution onto the victim.

Investor 3’s story is the one that deserves to be read in full and read slowly. She invested $85,000 on June 24, 2024, promised a 19% return over three months. She wrote a check on her company’s account at BayCoast Bank. She wrote “Anchor State AM01-02” in the memo line, referencing the two specific loan projects she had chosen. Aubin came to her personally to collect the check. What happened next, documented by bank records and captured in the SEC complaint, is a precise portrait of a fraud operator working in real time. Later that same day, June 24, 2024, Aubin cashed her check. He walked out of BayCoast Bank with a $75,000 bank check and $10,000 in cash. He went directly to a BayCoast Bank branch and used $55,000 of that bank check to open a personal account in his own name. He took another $20,000 in cash from that transaction. Then he went to a different BayCoast branch and withdrew $7,000 in cash and paid his attorney $8,000, leaving $40,000 in the new account. The next morning, June 25, 2024, he wrote a check for $24,570 to another investor from this same personal account. Then he went to a third BayCoast branch and withdrew the remaining $15,430 in the form of a $10,000 bank check (plus a $5 fee) and $5,425 in cash and closed the account entirely. Twenty-four hours. Three bank branches. One investor’s savings, completely liquidated for Aubin’s personal purposes. The two loan projects Investor 3 had written in the memo line of her check were never funded.

When Investor 3’s contract was about to mature, Aubin asked if she wanted to roll over. She said no. She wanted her money back. Over the following weeks of fall 2024, she spoke to Aubin approximately weekly. He told her multiple times she would be repaid within a few days. She completed and returned a formal Fund Withdrawal Form that Anchor State sent her so the repayment could proceed by wire. The wire never came. The excuses, when they arrived, concerned Aubin’s personal life and his tax obligations. To the date the SEC filed its complaint, Defendants have not repaid any of Investor 3’s principal or promised investment income. Not a dollar. She is still owed the full $85,000 plus the 19% return she was promised.

The rollover mechanism deserves its own accounting in this ledger because it is not simply a financial tactic; it is a psychological one. When an investment matures and the operator can’t pay, asking the investor to “roll it over” converts a defaulting obligation into a new promise. The investor’s loss stays invisible, at least to themselves. Their principal doesn’t disappear in their records; it becomes the basis of a new, larger contract. The SEC’s complaint identifies this practice explicitly as characteristic of a Ponzi scheme because it “allows the operator of the Ponzi scheme to avoid needing to make a payout, thereby keeping investor funds under his or her control.” What this analysis omits is the psychological dimension: rolling over is a choice made by someone who still trusts the operator. Each rollover is another measure of trust stolen.

The Money Trail: Where $2.5 Million Actually Went

The bar chart below maps what the SEC’s complaint documents about capital flows at Anchor State during the relevant period. Each figure is drawn directly from the source document. No number has been estimated or invented.

Legal Receipts: Directly From The Complaint

Every passage below is a verbatim or near-verbatim quotation or direct factual statement taken from SEC v. Christopher Aubin et al., Civil Action No. 25-CV-11379. Nothing has been invented, paraphrased to change meaning, or softened. These are the government’s words, on record, in federal court.

“In total, the Commission estimates that Defendants raised over $2.5 million from at least 24 investors between at least April 2023 and at least December 2024 (the ‘Relevant Period’).” Complaint ¶1

“In truth, Defendants made very few real loans to borrowers and instead used investors’ funds largely to make payments to earlier investors and to pay for Defendants’ own business expenses and the personal expenses of Aubin and Relief Defendant Corcoran. Those personal expenses included lavish meals, luxury travel and vehicles. Defendants’ scheme thus has many hallmarks of a Ponzi scheme.” Complaint ¶3

“In the course of soliciting investments, and lulling investors who were inquiring about why they had not been repaid when their investments matured, Defendants made numerous false and/or misleading statements to investors. Defendants misrepresented: the uses to which investors’ money had been put, the existence and status of the loans for which the investments were purportedly made, the purported reasons why Defendants could not repay the loans when they were due, and the nature and success of Defendants’ business.” Complaint ¶4

“As of the date of this Complaint, Defendants have failed to repay at least $2 million in investment principal to investors with matured investment contracts. This sum does not account for the investment returns that Defendants promised to these investors.” Complaint ¶7

“The investment contracts stated that Anchor State was ‘engaged in the business of LENDING (e.g. expansion, construction flips, hard money, real-estate purchases, etc.),’ stated that Anchor State ‘desires to use the Investor’s funds to fund this event in consideration for the items listed in this Agreement,’ and provided that ‘[n]o other expenses may be paid for with the Funds the Investor provides the Company.'” Complaint ¶24

“Aubin sent Investor 1 a purported screenshot from his bank system that showed a wire transfer of $56,000 was processing. This screenshot appears to have been fabricated. The wire transfer did not arrive in Investor 1’s bank account and Aubin told Investor 1 that he had changed banks and there was a problem because his account had been flagged. Aubin then promised to send Investor 1 a check. The check never arrived.” Complaint ¶32

“Anchor State’s bank records show that Investor 1’s funds were not used to make investments, contrary to the representations in the Real Estate Partner Contract. Rather, a portion of Investor 1’s funds were used to fund payments to another investor and certain unknown individuals; another portion was transferred to Aubin’s personal account.” Complaint ¶34

“When Investor 2 attempted to deposit that check in the amount of $144,708.75 from Anchor State, which was dated May 9, 2024, the check bounced. At the time Aubin provided this check to Investor 2, he knew or was reckless in not knowing it would bounce because Anchor State’s accounts were not even close to containing sufficient funds to pay it.” Complaint ¶38

“Investor 2 continues to contact Aubin to seek payment and Aubin gives him a variety of excuses about why Aubin and Anchor State cannot pay, including that he had repaid some other investors, that he had gotten in over his head with a social media influencer circle and could not handle his business, that he had problems caused by a lawsuit filed by several investors and that an attorney had taken his money.” Complaint ¶39

“Later in the day on June 24, 2024, Aubin took Investor 3’s check to BayCoast Bank and cashed the check. Aubin received a $75,000 bank check and $10,000 in cash. He then immediately used $55,000 of the $75,000 check to open a personal account in his own name at BayCoast Bank and took out another $20,000 in cash. Later that day, Aubin went to a different BayCoast Bank branch and withdrew $7,000 in cash and paid his attorney $8,000 from his new personal account, leaving a $40,000 balance. The next morning, June 25, 2024, Aubin paid another investor $24,570 from his BayCoast personal account by check. Later that day, Aubin went to a third BayCoast Bank branch and withdrew the remaining $15,430 in the form of a bank check for $10,000 (plus a $5 fee) and $5,425 in cash and closed his personal account at BayCoast Bank.” Complaint ¶43

“Anchor State’s bank records show a pattern of investors’ funds being disbursed shortly after they were deposited to fund, among other things: 1) payments to other investors whose investment contracts had matured, 2) payments to personal bank accounts belonging to Aubin, 3) cash withdrawals, and 4) payments to various entities for Aubin’s and/or Corcoran’s living expenses and luxury travel.” Complaint ¶48

“On information and belief, on or about February 7, 2024, Aubin spent about $66,805 from Anchor State’s bank accounts to purchase a BMW automobile. Aubin then gave that automobile to Corcoran for her personal use.” Complaint ¶53

“On numerous occasions in 2023 and 2024, funds from Anchor State’s bank accounts were used to pay for luxury travel, including private jet transport, for Aubin and Corcoran.” Complaint ¶54

“On April 23, 2024, Aubin transferred $20,000 from one of Anchor State’s bank accounts to his personal bank account and then, the same day, withdrew $15,000 from that personal account in the form of a bank check made payable to Corcoran’s mother with a notation on the check that it was ‘Re: Ashley E. Corcoran.'” Complaint ¶55

“Between about October 28 and December 10, 2024, a total of $22,400 was transferred from Anchor State Properties’ bank account to a personal account jointly owned by Aubin and Corcoran at Bank of America.” Complaint ¶56

“Defendants’ conduct involved fraud, deceit, manipulation or deliberate or reckless disregard of regulatory requirements and directly or indirectly resulted in substantial losses to other persons.” Complaint ¶59

Societal Impact Mapping

Anchor State’s fraud is a local story with structural implications. The specific harm done here illuminates broader patterns in how financial predation operates in communities where institutional trust is thin, regulatory literacy is low, and social networks double as investment pipelines.

Environmental Degradation

The source material does not document direct environmental harm in the form of chemical spills, land destruction, or pollution. However, the fraud mechanism itself carries an indirect environmental dimension that deserves examination. Anchor State’s pitch was built around hard money lending for real estate projects: driveways, septic systems, land clearing, property flips, and construction. These are activities with real environmental footprints. When a lending operation is fraudulent and capital never actually flows to the described projects, the regulatory and oversight infrastructure that is supposed to accompany legitimate real estate development, including permitting, environmental review, and contractor accountability, simply does not engage.

Further, the funds that investors believed were going toward specific, identifiable real estate projects were instead converted to cash and spent on luxury consumption: private jets, BMW vehicles, lavish meals. Private aviation is one of the most carbon-intensive forms of individual consumption available. The SEC complaint documents “numerous occasions in 2023 and 2024” when “funds from Anchor State’s bank accounts were used to pay for luxury travel, including private jet transport, for Aubin and Corcoran.” Each of those flights represents investor capital that was extracted from productive economic activity, converted into a high-emissions personal expenditure, and removed from any possibility of community benefit. The people who handed over their savings believed they were participating in local real estate markets. Their money went into jet fuel instead.

The broader pattern, small-scale financial fraud recycling community capital into personal luxury consumption, is a documented contributor to economic stagnation in communities that rely on local investment for housing development and property improvement. When hard money lenders operate fraudulently, legitimate small developers are denied access to capital by association, and the housing stock those loans were supposed to improve remains undeveloped. The ripple effect on neighborhoods, particularly in Rhode Island and Massachusetts markets described in the complaint, is diffuse but real.

The SEC’s website has a press release about this scandal on its website: https://www.sec.gov/enforcement-litigation/litigation-releases/lr-26315

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