* Tribune…

A class action lawsuit was filed Friday in Cook County Circuit Court against WGN-TV and owner Nexstar Media, as well as several Chicago-area radio stations, for platforming Brandon Ellington, who allegedly used the airwaves to swindle hundreds of Chicagoans out of $15 million through a Ponzi-like investment scheme.

WGN-Ch. 9 featured Ellington, a convicted mortgage-fraud felon who rebranded himself as “Mr. Finance,” on several broadcasts last year, including its daily lifestyle show “Spotlight Chicago,” which airs weekdays at 1 p.m. with hosts Sarah Jindra and Ji Suk Yi.

“WGN-TV’s own hosts endorsed him in the station’s voice,” the lawsuit states. “The hosts asked no probing question about Ellington’s background and disclosed nothing about it; they presented a convicted federal mortgage-fraud felon to their viewers as a model of financial success.”

Ellington’s on-air interviews are still posted on WGN’s YouTube page.

* From the lawsuit…

This is a class action to recover the savings of hundreds of Chicagoans—nearly all of them Black, and many elderly, retired, or devout—taken in what the Illinois Secretary of State has found to be a “Ponzi-like scheme.” Brandon Ellington, a convicted federal mortgage-fraud felon who rebrands himself “Mr. Finance, the millionaire maker,” persuaded ordinary people to borrow against their homes, leverage their credit, and liquidate their retirement accounts to place money with his company, Access Capital Today, Inc., on the promise of guaranteed returns of “50%” or “60%.”

Ellington paid early investors with the money of later ones and, when new money slowed, stopped paying. The Secretary of State found the scheme funded “existing clients’ promised returns” with new-investor money and was designed to pay everyone “by the closeout date of July 31, 2026, in a Ponzi-like scheme.”

Ellington did not build that trust alone; he bought it from Chicago’s airwaves, boasting on air: “you can’t turn on any radio outlet and not hear me *** I got 272 commercials a day, 23 radio shows a week.” The Broadcaster Defendants sold him more than airtime—they sold him their formats, their anchors, and their institutional credibility.

They did not merely sell advertising time; they produced the segments, presented Ellington through their own anchors and news-style formats, exercised editorial control over what aired, and lent him the institutional credibility that made his mass solicitation possible.

WGN-TV produced and broadcast him as a vetted wealth “expert” on “Spotlight Chicago,” content it describes as “brought to you by the team at WGN-TV,” and still displays that segment online after the Secretary of State branded the operation a fraud.

* WGN and others platformed the guy despite his back story…

Before “Mr. Finance,” Ellington was a mortgage loan officer who committed federal fraud. In 2008, the United States indicted him and numerous other defendants in United States v. Brown, No. 08 CR 453 (N.D. Ill.)—the Chicago case in a scheme the Department of Justice described as one of the largest mortgage-fraud prosecutions in the district, involving roughly 150 fraudulently obtained mortgage loans, more than $95 million in loan proceeds, and approximately $19 million in lender losses.

* Crain’s…

“What makes these allegations so troubling is that they involve people who entrusted someone with their life savings, delayed retirement or even borrowed money based on promises that never materialized,” Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias said in an emailed statement. ”These aren’t just financial losses — they’re shattered plans and broken trust. Our office will continue to aggressively protect Illinoisans and pursue anyone who violates Illinois securities laws or deceives the public by posing as a trusted financial expert.”

The secretary of state’s office issued a temporary order of protection on March 13 meant as a short-term order to immediately stop someone from performing certain actions, typically issued to prevent harm or illegal activity until a full hearing is held.

The order states Ellington and Access Capital Today are prohibited from “offering or selling securities or acting as an investment adviser or investment adviser representative” in “Illinois in the public interest and for the protection of the investing public,” the secretary of state’s office said.