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Content warning: This story references suicide and self-harm.
One of the co-founders of a Florida insurance agency accused of defrauding investors in a recent class action lawsuit has died by suicide, according to media reports.
Eric Holtz, the 54-year-old executive vice president of Boca Raton, Florida-based Seeman Holtz, died Friday in California, a company spokesperson confirmed to Reuters.
“Our entire Seeman Holtz family mourns this tragic loss and sends our love and deepest sympathy to Eric’s wife Shannon, his children Tristan, Alex, and Aiden, and especially his grandson Isaac and granddaughter Emilia, who influenced his big smile every day,” the company said in a statement to BocaNewsNow.com. “Anyone who has known Eric, knew him as a compassionate and highly motivated individual who loved his family and cared deeply about the welfare of everyone in The Seeman Holtz Family of Companies and all of our clients.While he can never be replaced, we will honor his legacy by continuing the work that Eric dedicated his life to—serving our clients.”
The company told Reuters that Holtz’s death was unrelated to the pending class action lawsuit.
“There is no indication that Eric’s tragic passing is in any way related to this filing,” he added.
The lawsuit had just been filed by Plaintiff Fanny Millstein on Monday, June 7, alleging Seeman Holtz, along with Holtz himself and other co-founder Marshal Seeman, violated multiple state and federal laws by selling improperly-registered securities to her and others, which the company then failed to pay back at maturity.
Over the last decade, the insurance agency marketed and sold — primarily to seniors — securities in the form of promissory notes purportedly collateralized by life insurance policies issued to third parties, the class action alleges.
According to the lawsuit, the 76-year-old Millstein and her husband invested more than $225,000 of their savings through Seeman Holtz in 2016 and 2017 in two of the promissory notes Seeman Holtz marketed to them.
Millstein was promised that her and her husband’s assets would be liquid and that they would be repaid upon maturity, the class action says.
However, when the time came for repaying the notes on maturity in 2019 and 2020, Seeman Holtz told her that the firm was undergoing financial problems.
“The effects have been devastating for Plaintiff,” the class action says. “At age 76, Fanny Millstein should not be forced to contemplate that her and her husband’s life savings invested with Seeman Holtz have vanished.”
According to the lawsuit, Seeman Holtz claimed to investors that it invested in life insurance policies that would pay out to note-holders a substantial premium upon the death of the insured, and that the insurance policy assets were protected. That was not true, the lawsuit alleges.
“The Seeman Holtz Defendants fraudulently represented to investors in every entity they created that the underlying third-party insurance policy assets were held by a collateral agent to protect those assets,” the class action says. In reality, the policies were all “co-mingled” by Seeman Holtz, according to the lawsuit.
The class action alleges Seeman Holtz was not registered to sell securities like the notes in the first place, nor were its agents registered as financial advisors or properly licensed to sell the notes.
The lawsuit claims Seeman Holtz committed violations of Florida state securities laws, breach of fiduciary duty, negligence, violations of Florida’s civil remedies for criminal practices act, violations of Florida RICO Statute and conspiracy to violate Florida’s Civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Millstein is looking for anyone who purchased one or more of the notes to join the lawsuit, and is seeking all outstanding interest on the notes, the principal investments in the notes that have matured and rescission of the notes, plus interest, fees and a jury trial.
A Seeman Holtz spokesperson told Reuters it denied any allegations of wrongdoing, and that “there is no indication that Eric’s tragic passing is in any way related to this filing.”
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline number is 1-800-273-8255.
Millstein is represented by James D. Sallah and Joshua A Katz of Sallah Astarita & Cox, LLC, Scott L. Silver, Ryan A. Schwamm, and Peter M. Spett of Silver Law Group, Gary S. Menzer and Michael S. Hill of Menzer & Hill, P.A., and David M. Buckner and Brett E. von Borke of Buckner + Miles.
The Seeman Holtz Promissory Notes Class Action Lawsuit is Millstein et al., v. Holtz et al., Case No. 0:21-cv-61179-XXXX, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida Fort Lauderdale Division.
