Pawleys Island investment adviser facing new allegations weeks before wire fraud case set for trial

A financial adviser who purchased the most expensive Grand Strand property sold in 2010 before being charged with defrauding investors has again landed in legal trouble.

Stanley Kowalewski was scheduled to appear in a Florence courtroom Thursday afternoon for a bond revocation hearing, according to court filings. He could not be reached for comment.

Kowalewski has been living in Pawleys Island while awaiting trial on a wire fraud case, according to public records. Federal investigators contend in court papers that while on supervised release Kowalewski has continued “to engage in schemes to defraud investors and others.”

Kowalewski, who moved to the area from Greensboro, N.C., became embroiled in turmoil in 2011 when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission accused him of using investment funds as a personal bank account.

The SEC said the hedge fund manager and his firm, SJK Investment Management LLC, used investor money to buy a $3.9 million house in Pawleys Island. Kowalewski, who was CEO of SJK, raised more than $65 million through marketing two hedge funds to various investors, then put $16.5 million of it in a new fund he created and put it toward personal use, including buying the Pawleys Island house, according to an SEC complaint.

He was later charged with wire fraud, conspiracy to obstruct SEC proceeding and obstruction of SEC proceeding.

Kowalewski’s latest legal problems are tied to a Pawleys Island company called Global Remediation Solutions LLC (GRS), according to court records filed this week.

GRS was formed in 2013 and claims to offer industrial tank cleaning, demolition, oil remediation, environmental consulting and other services, court documents show.

Federal officials say a brochure for the company touts Kowalewski’s experience as a hedge fund manager but doesn’t mention his involvement in SJK or his federal trial scheduled to begin Oct. 26.

Kirby Oblachinski, who served as the company’s director of global sales from March 1 through Aug. 26, has been providing the FBI with details about Kowalewski’s dealings, records show.

In July, Kowalewski told Oblachinski that he planned to give up 5-6 percent of his equity in GRS to generate capital, and later said he raised the money in a few hours, court records state.

Oblachinski was eventually fired and Kowalewski threatened to sue him for $10 million, according to court filings. The terminated employee told federal investigators that Kowalewski left a GRS business card and a knife on is front porch around the time he was fired.

On Sept. 19, Kowalewski sent Oblachinski an email saying, “we are watching your every move,” court records show.

Oblachinski told investigators his former boss was stockpiling money and once stated that he knew which countries would not extradite him, declaring, “I will never go to jail.”

Court records state that Oblachinski plans to testify that Kowalewski “has a lot of connections in the Middle East. He had a kid working in his office that attended Coastal Carolina University that was part of the Royal family in some Middle Eastern Country. His family had 2-3 airplanes.”

Another witness, Eric Schwab, plans to testify that Kowalewski lied to investors about the scope of his deals and told some of them that Schwab, who had planned to work with Kowalewski, was the nephew of the brokerage firm founder Charles Schwab.

Eric Schwab told investigators Kowalewski lied to clients about the names of people he’d done business with and wrote him two bad GRS checks totaling $40,000, according to court filings.

None of the GRS investors interviewed by the FBI received any money from Kowalewski, who paid $905,000 in cash for a different Pawleys Island house in May, according to court filings.

The phone number for GRS takes callers to an automated voice messaging service, but the extensions for the named employees didn’t work Wednesday afternoon.

A message left on the company voicemail wasn’t returned.

Along with his work as a hedge fund manager, Kowalewski has also coached youth basketball.

A former player for Dartmouth College, Kowalewski led the local S.C. Gators AAU team to a state title in the spring.

In 2009, he coached the Northern Guilford (N.C.) High School squad to a state championship, but the school was later stripped of the title because the squad included players who lived outside the school district, according to local media reports.

Kowalewski also coached at Oak Ridge Military Academy in 2011 before stepping down amid the investment scandal.

This story was originally published October 1, 2015 at 9:46 AM with the headline "Pawleys Island investment adviser facing new allegations weeks before wire fraud case set for trial."