Lawyer John Deaton Files Securities Fraud Class Action Against Former Linqto CEO, Involving Private Company Stock Sales Including Ripple

BlockBeats News, July 9th, according to reporter Eleanor Terrett, lawyer John E Deaton representing thousands of retail investors has filed a securities fraud class action lawsuit against Linqto co-founder and former CEO William Sarris. The lawsuit alleges that Sarris conducted a multi-year fraud scheme on the Linqto platform by selling shares of private companies such as Ripple, Uphold, and Kraken through SPVs (Special Purpose Vehicles) with undisclosed markups as high as 60%, misleading waiver statements, and unlicensed sales.

According to the complaint, Sarris had received internal legal memoranda in 2023 and 2024 explicitly warning that these issuance practices violated multiple SEC and FINRA regulations, including acting as an unregistered broker-dealer and operating an unregistered investment company, but he chose to ignore them. Deaton stated that this lawsuit is against Sarris personally and is not subject to bankruptcy protection limitations.