Corporate filing scam stopped

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In one of his last official acts before becoming governor, Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown on Thursday announced that his lawyers have shut down an illegal scheme that misled over 5,000 small businesses into paying bogus corporate filing fees.

In a legal settlement signed Wednesday in San Diego County Superior Court, seven individual and corporate defendants agreed to pay restitution of $1.75 million to customers and $650,000 in penalties and legal costs to the state.

The defendants also agreed to a court injunction prohibiting them from soliciting payments from businesses by misleading them into thinking that they needed to file official-looking but fraudulent business documents along with a $195 filing fee.

‘These impostors used phony documents that appeared to originate from a government office to gain payment from law-abiding businesses,’ Brown said. ‘This settlement puts a stop to their scheme and secures restitution for the companies that were cheated.’

The defendants included Annual Review Board Inc. Business Filings Division, Corpfilers.com, George Alan Miller, Rebecca J. Miller, Argishti Keshishyan and Kristina Keshishyan.

None of the defendants admitted any legal wrongdoing.

Brown will be sworn in as governor on Monday.

-- Marc Lifsher