The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission focused on the sale and resale of several Clearwater properties in a complaint charging former real estate executives with defrauding investors.

The complaint names five former executives at Cay Clubs Resorts and Marinas, alleging they told investors they were funding the development of five-star destination resorts in Florida and Las Vegas, when they were actually buying into a Ponzi scheme.

The civil complaint said the scheme raised more than $300 million from almost 1,400 investors. Investors who purchased units at Cay Clubs resort locations were promised immediate income from a guaranteed 15 percent return and a future income stream through a rental program that Cay Clubs managed.

Instead of using investors' money to develop resort properties, the executives paid themselves exorbitant salaries and bought airplanes and boats, the SEC said. The executives artificially inflated the value of the units purchased by flipping them, selling them back and forth to each other, including at least half a dozen units at Cay Clubs' Clearwater location, according to the complaint.

The company ultimately renovated only a few units in Clearwater and in Las Vegas "and never converted a single property into a luxury resort,” the complaint said.

The Tampa Bay Business Journal reported on the company's downward spiral in 2007 before it collapsed in 2008 and the Clearwater property was put up for auction.

The SEC filed the complaint in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Named in the complaint are: Fred Clark Jr., who was Cay Clubs' president and CEO; David Schwarz, former chief accounting officer; Cristal Coleman, former manager and sales agent; and Barry Graham and Ricky Stokes, former sales directors.

Clark and Coleman now are married and live in Grand Cayman. Schwarz lives in Orlando, Graham in Marathon and Stokes in Fort Myers, the complaint said.

The complaint seeks financial penalties from Clark, Coleman and Stokes and the disgorgement of ill-gotten gains by all five executives.

Margie Manning is Quality and Content Editor of the Tampa Bay Business Journal. She also covers banking, finance and professional services.