Mr. Weigel is currently on a sabbatical from our firm as he serves as Commissioner of the Florida Office of Financial Regulation. Mr. Weigel contributed part of the compliance framework for the Company, and we believe the work he is doing in Florida to create a capital market and promote investor and entrepreneur education in that state are aligned with the Company’s educational goals. We look forward to his eventual return to the private sector.

 

Mr. Weigel joined Commonwealth Capital Advisors, our old parent firm, as its Chief Legal Counsel in April of 2014. Mr. Weigel is currently serving as the Commissioner of the Florida Office of Financial Regulation, hence his participation with the firm’s operation is on hold. Mr. Weigel is a founding principal of Commonwealth Capital’s Executive Board and was a senior management team member of Commonwealth Capital. Prior to becoming Commissioner of the Florida Office of Financial Regulation. Mr. Weigel’s responsibilities included general corporate and legal-compliance counseling services. He also served as a Member of the Investment Policy Committee of Commonwealth Capital’s Income Funds – I & II. Mr. Weigel resides in greater Miami, FL.

 

Mr. Weigel is the author of Capital for Keeps, a book designed to help entrepreneurs plan a capital raise and minimize litigation risk and is a recurrent lecturer on securities law and ethics topics to the legal profession.  He also is an AV-rated[1] securities attorney. An AV® Peer Review Rating Certification Mark is a significant rating accomplishment, which ranks the lawyer at the highest level of professional excellence. A lawyer must be admitted to the bar for 10 years or more to receive this rating.  Mr. Weigel graduated from Vanderbilt University with a Bachelor of Arts in economics and from the University of Miami with a juris doctor degree.

 

Mr. Weigel is the former president of Investment Attorneys, a Florida-based law firm that launched in 2005 and sold in February 2020, where he handled both securities transactional and securities litigation matters. His focus included advising public and private company clients on capital raising transactions and mergers, preparing their SEC reports and registration statement filings, regulatory compliance matters for securities-industry participants, and defending clients involved in arbitrations and FINRA, SEC, and state securities enforcement matters.

 

Between 1989 and 1990, Mr. Weigel served the state of Florida as a criminal prosecutor. Between 1990 and 2001, Mr. Weigel worked for the Securities and Exchange Commission as an enforcement attorney. He supervised and conducted numerous investigations and litigated many civil injunctive and administrative proceedings nationwide. Most of his cases involved allegations of fraud, sales of unregistered non-exempt securities, or regulatory compliance violations. Mr. Weigel also supervised investigations and litigated cases involving securities issuers’ Ponzi schemes and false financial reporting. The targets of Mr. Weigel’s cases typically were stock promoters, public companies, broker-dealers, investment advisers, and stock transfer agents.

 

Mr. Weigel will be welcomed back to the Company when his appointment to the Florida Office of Financial Regulation terminates.

 

[1] CV, BV, and AV are registered certification marks of Reed Elsevier Properties, Inc. in accordance with Martindale-Hubbell certification procedure's standards and policies. Martindale-Hubbell is the facilitator of a peer review process that rates lawyers. Ratings reflect the confidential opinions of members of the Bar and the Judiciary. Martindale-Hubbell ratings fall into two categories - legal ability and general ethical standards.