Level Brands CEO, Martin A. Sumichrast, has a long, checkered past
Martin A. Sumichrast, CEO Of Level Brands, Has A Checkered Past
On Martin Sumichrast’s LinkedIn page, it shows a 14-year gap between when he was the CEO of Global Capital Partners ending in 2002, and CEO of Level Brands starting in 2016.
He had a lot of activity in those 14 years, and we understand why he isn’t sharing it with the public. As shown here Sumichrast served as the Managing Director at Lomond International, Inc. from 2002 to 2013. Lomond International was a business advisory company that setup many reverse merger shell companies that failed. It has since dissolved. It’s listed in Offshore Leaks database, and its intermediary was scandalous law firm Mossack Fonseca. On 2/11/17, Reuters reported:
“The two founders of Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca were arrested on Saturday, the attorney general’s office said, after both were indicted on charges of money-laundering in a case allegedly tied to a wide-ranging corruption scandal in Brazil.”
This Panama Papers article tells the Mossack Fonseca story in detail.
Sumichrast also worked with Jordan Belfort, of Wolf of Wall Street infamy. Belfort founded corrupt brokerage firm Stratton Oakmont. This article from 1996 states that Sumichrast put up a $50k loan for e-Net, a company that Stratton Oakmont took public.
Sumichrast established Siskey Capital with Rick Siskey in 2013. Siskey took his own life in December, 2016 when the FBI alleged in this affidavit that he was running a huge Ponzi scheme for years. Sumichrast claimed he didn’t know the Ponzi scheme was going on. After the Ponzi scheme came to light, Siskey Capital changed its name to Stone Street Partners.
This article tells the story about Siskey Capital and it includes a video documentary about the Ponzi scheme and its victims. It also shows a Stone Street Partners, aka Siskey Capital, lawsuit.
The attorney of the defrauded investors said that there’s no way that Siskey could’ve kept this huge Ponzi scheme going for as long as he did without others either being involved or knowing what’s going on and turning a blind eye.
Stone Street Partners is still run by Sumichrast. It is heavily involved with Level Brands, as a shareholder and lender, as shown in the SEC filings and Offering Circular. In the Offering Circular it states:
“Since September 2013, he (Sumichrast) has been a Managing Member of Stone Street Capital, LLC, a Charlotte, North Carolina-based private investment company.”
and
” in April 2015, we entered into an advisory services agreement with Stone Street Partners, LLC pursuant to which it agreed to provide us certain management services for a monthly fee of $10,000, payable at the earlier of such time as we had sufficient capital to satisfy this obligation or upon the closing of an offering resulting in gross proceeds to us of at least $5 million.”
Other articles on Sumichrast’s history:
Here is a 2008 Sharesleuth.com article on Sumichrast
Here is a Barron’s article on Level Brands and Sumichrast’s shady past