Authorities yesterday arrested GameOn Technology founder Alexander Charles Beckman and attorney Valerie Lau Beckman (a married couple) for allegedly defrauding investors of $60 million.
In a 25-count indictment, the U.S. Department of Justice said the couple allegedly falsified dozens of bank statements and audit reports defraud GameOn investors. The alleged fraud spanned six years.
Beckman was the founder and former CEO of GameOn and last year he resigned from the company after cofounders alleged at the time that $11 million went missing from the company’s bank account, which was left with just 37 cents instead. The company shut down and laid off staff in July 2024. Authorities charged him and attorney Valerie Lau Beckman — a married couple — with conspiracy, wire fraud, securities fraud, identity theft, and other offenses. Lau was also charged with obstruction of justice.
According to the indictment filed on January 21, Beckman, 41, and Lau, 38, both of San Francisco, allegedly conspired to defraud GameOn investors, GameOn, and a bank. GameOn was a San Francisco-based private business that offers a software program claiming artificial intelligence functionality that mimics human conversation and interaction, commonly known as a chatbot or “chat.”
Its customers included prominent American professional sports leagues and teams and leading luxury fashion and retail brands. Over the course of the alleged scheme, from September 2018 to July 2024, Beckman raised over $60 million from GameOn investors. Lau was an attorney who worked on GameOn corporate and transactional matters from at least 2016 to 2024.
The couple married in October 2023. Beckman and Lau allegedly used over $4 million of GameOn investor funds on personal expenses, including purchases of residences in San Francisco, payments to private schools, and payments to their wedding venue.
“The Bay Area is home to incredible innovation and hard-working entrepreneurs, but innovation cannot grow through fraud. Schemes like the ones that defendants are charged with threaten our financial markets and cheat investors,” said first assistant United States attorney Patrick D. Robbins, in a statement. “This indictment should serve as a reminder that we will investigate and hold fraudsters accountable.”
“Fraud undermines the integrity of our capital markets and erodes the trust that investors place in them,” said FBI Acting Special Agent in Charge Dan Costin, in a statement. “The FBI is committed to ensuring our financial markets remain fair and transparent by investigating and holding accountable those who engage in deceptive practices.”
As alleged in the indictment, Beckman’s statements to GameOn investors often described non-existent revenue, inflated cash balances, and fake and otherwise exaggerated customer relationships. To further the scheme, Beckman allegedly used the names of at least seven real people—including fake emails and signatures—without their permission to distribute false and fraudulent GameOn financial and business information and documents with the intent to defraud GameOn and its investors.
Among the individuals whose names Beckman used to commit the fraud scheme was a GameOn CFO, two bank employees, and an employee of a major professional sports league, the document said. Beckman also fabricated two GameOn audit reports using the names, signatures, and trademarks of reputable accounting firms, including one of the Big Four accounting firms, to validate false financial statements, and distributed over a dozen fake bank statements for GameOn’s accounts as part of the scheme, the indictment alleged.
After changing law firms multiple times, Lau joined a venture capital firm in September 2021. Lau is alleged to have provided Beckman with genuine audit reports that she obtained from her own employer that Beckman then used to create fake audit reports for GameOn. The indictment alleges that Lau personally emailed one of these fake audit reports to a GameOn investor’s representative, knowing it to be fake, to induce further investment into the company, the Justice Department said.
In June 2024, Lau furthered the scheme to defraud by delivering a fake GameOn account statement—one that she knew falsely listed GameOn’s balance at a certain financial institution as over $13 million when the company’s true balance was just $25.93—to a bank branch in San Francisco and asking a bank employee to keep the fake statement in an envelope at the bank for Beckman to pick up later that day. Lau knew that Beckman planned to pick up the fake statement with a GameOn director who represented a major investor on GameOn’s board. Beckman picked up the fake statement with the GameOn director that day, the indictment said.
In August 2024, when Lau’s employer approached Lau regarding GameOn, Lau lied to her employer about her work for GameOn and then attempted to delete hundreds of files relating to that GameOn work from her employer’s records at a time when a grand jury investigation into GameOn was pending.
Beckman and Lau were arrested this week and made their initial appearances in federal court in San Francisco. They pleaded not guilty. We have tried to reach Beckman for comment.
An indictment merely alleges that crimes have been committed, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. If convicted, defendants face the following maximum sentences: 20 years in prison for each count of wire fraud and wire fraud conspiracy, five years in prison for the count of securities fraud conspiracy, 30 years in prison for each count of bank fraud conspiracy and false statements to a bank; 10 years in prison for the count of engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activity; and two years in prison for each count of aggravated identity theft. Lau also faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for the count of obstruction of justice.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick O’Brien is prosecuting the case with the assistance of Lance Libatique and Maryam Beros. The prosecution is the result of an investigation by the FBI. Beckman and Kalin Stanojev, chief product officer, founded the company in 2014 to build an enterprise-grade conversational AI platform.
Last July, Stanojev and company officer Jon Layman, head of operations (neither has been charged), wrote a letter to shareholders from other company officers alleged they discovered to their “shock and horror” that the bank account that was supposed to have millions in it was nearly empty. The letter said the board pressured Beckman to resign on July 1, 2024.
“This cash was critical to the ongoing operations of the company in which you invested,” the letter said. “To our shock and horror, we discovered that, in reality, the account balance in that bank was only 37 cents. This discovery left the company in a liquidity crisis, and the board and management were forced to act quickly, hoping to stave off bankruptcy.”
In an interview in July 2024, Beckman confirmed with GamesBeat that he left the company in early July. He said he was not in a position to discuss the company’s decision to cease operations.
“From the beginning, I’ve only wanted what’s best for the company and its employees. And I resigned because I believed it was in the best interest of the company. I am aware of a communication describing my departure. That communication contains a number of exaggerations and misstatements and does not paint an accurate picture of what happened,” he said. “I look forward to correcting the record, I’m providing the full story at the appropriate time.”
Beckman said he could not comment on whether there was litigation. He confirmed the company had raised $35.5 million in a couple of rounds, and that it grew to be more than 60 employees. He said he loved the company and this is an “incredibly painful time period.” More of what he said is in our story published at the time.
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