HAMILTON COUNTY, Ind. — The office of Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita announced Monday that a temporary restraining order and a receiver for assets has been appointed in relation to claims that a Fishers man defrauded multiple Indiana residents of thousands of dollars.

This comes after the Indiana Securities Commission filed a lawsuit against Darrin Blaine, along with Allen R. Geiger and Marguerite Kimball-King, employees of Akamai Physics Inc., (API) and one of its subsidiaries Porrima Photonix, Inc., (PPI), earlier this month in relation to the reported fraud.

According to previous reports, officials are alleging that API and PPI defrauded eight Indiana investors, as well as other investors across the country. Eight Indiana investors lost around $680,000 that was invested into the companies and more than $1.4 million was collected from investors across several states into API and PPI accounts.

Blaine created the Laser Tech Investment Club as a way to draw new investors to API/PPI, according to previous reports, the goal of which was to sell a $1,000,000 promissory note from API. Officials allege that Blaine did not pool the $1,000,000 from the investors into the club and purchase the note, but wired each partner’s investment directly to API, to PPI or to himself.

According to a news release from Rokita’s office, an additional lawsuit, brought on behalf of the Indiana Securities Commission, was recently filed in Hamilton County against Blaine, as well as Geiger, Kimball-King and API/PPI. This lawsuit focuses on reported violations of the Indiana Uniform Securities Act.

“It’s sickening to see alleged criminal manipulators maliciously abuse the trust of hard-working Hoosiers and swindle their hard-earned money for personal gain,” Rokita said in the release. “While other law enforcement agencies press criminal charges, we work to hold financially accountable all those who have violated Indiana Securities laws, recover assets they have wrongfully obtained, and secure restitution for victims.” 

The lawsuit claims that the defendants were not registered as broker-dealers to sell securities in Indiana and that the securities sold by the defendants were not registered in Indiana. The lawsuit also claims that the defendants solicited investors for the scheme by lying about API/PPI’s contractual agreements and omitting material facts.

The lawsuit is asking for the Hamilton County Court to freeze all assets for the defendants, including all financial accounts, until investor proceeds have been accounted for. The lawsuit is also asking for the court to prevent the defendants, and anyone associated with them, from “altering, manipulating, changing, destroying or tampering with any of the records or data concerning” the investments.

“The financial investors in this case placed their hard-earned money into the hands of someone whom they thought they could trust,” Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales said in the release. “Instead, the victims’ money fell into the hands of a bad actor who used the investors’ funds for personal use. Our office will continue to seek justice for these Hoosier investors and hopefully restore some trust back to the victims.”

An injunction hearing in this case is scheduled for 9 a.m. on Nov. 28, according to the release.