Listen, Read, Watch

What it feels like spend 25 minutes in a runaway Toyota Prius on a San Diego interstate — KGTV (.mp3)

Stu Segall once made porn films like this. Now he trains U.S. troops at his studio in San Diego — WSJ

Laura Duffy, Obama’s nominee for U.S. Attorney in San Diego, is one tough lady — Main Justice.

Forget Elmo. Tickle me, ex-Rep. Massa! (A proud former San Diegan) — Gawker

Lerach is back — Reuters

Eric Massa's San Diego ties

The strange saga of former Rep. Eric J.J. Massa, now reportedly under investigation for allegedly groping male staffers, is being closely followed in San Diego’s Navy community.

His father, Emiddio “Mead” Massa and his father-in-law, Adolf “Jake” Jacobsen, are retired Navy captains. Eric married Jacobsen’s daughter, Beverly.

Eric Massa graduated in 1981 from the U.S. Naval Academy. He retired in 2003 when he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

“Massa and his family moved to San Diego to be near his and Beverly’s parents, and he spent six months undergoing surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. They bought a one-story house because Massa had trouble walking up stairs,” Money magazine wrote in a 2006 profile.

Diagnosed as cancer-free, Massa decided to run for Congress in upstate New York. The couple sold the San Diego home and plowed the proceeds into Massa’s campaign, according to Money.

Ray Lucia's brokerage settles SEC charges

*** Update: An attorney for Ray Lucia has threatened to sue me over this blog post. See his letter and my response here. ***

First Allied Securities, a San Diego-based brokerage firm, has agreed to pay nearly $2 million to settle charges that it failed to supervise one of its employees.

The SEC found that between 2005 and 2008, former First Allied broker Harold Jaschke engaged in unauthorized and unsuitable trading on behalf of two Florida municipalities, putting them at risk of losing millions of dollars while he reaped commissions of more than $14 million for himself.

The SEC administrative order issued Friday hasn’t attracted much interest locally, but it’s worth a look because of its relationship with investor/radio host Ray “Buckets of Money” Lucia.

First Allied is owned by FAS Holdings, which is in turn owned by Chicago-based Advanced Equities Financial Corp. A 2008 story in Forbes magazine on Advanced Equities quoted an anonymous broker for the company as saying, “This place is a stereotypical bucket shop.”

Advanced Equities is also the subject of a series of complaints filed with financial industry regulators by San Diego’s Mirch Law Firm that mention Lucia, who hosts a radio and TV show in major media markets.

Lucia offers investment advice, including his trademarked “Buckets of Money” strategy through his show and at seminars, like this one in San Diego March 20 with actor Ben Stein.

According to SEC filings, Lucia solicits business for First Allied, and receives a cut of some of the fees in return.  Fees for a Ray Lucia account run as high as 2 percent, paid quarterly in advance.

Buckets of money, indeed.