An Omaha investment adviser improperly charged at least $773,000 in fees to clients since last August, and about $250,000 remains missing, according to a lawsuit the Securities and Exchange Commission filed Tuesday.

Regulators also want a federal judge to freeze the assets of Ryan Jindra and his company, Envision Financial Group.

Jindra's attorney, Steve Lefler, declined to comment because he had not seen the lawsuit.

Jindra's firm attracted customers nationwide through referrals from a network of insurance agents who recruited clients for Envision.

The SEC says Envision's records show that at one point in 2008 Jindra was managing as much as $51 million. Currently, Jindra is managing about $3.1 million in assets.

The SEC said Jindra used some of the fee money to pay business debts at his company, some for personal benefit, and some to repay investors who had been charged fees earlier.

"The purported advisory fees were fraudulent, excessive and unauthorized," the SEC said in the lawsuit.

In an e-mail last August just before the excessive fees began, Jindra told his wife the company owed $53,377.45 in overdue bills, according to the lawsuit.

Jindra allegedly used some of the fee money to pay his company's bills, but the SEC says Envision has regularly been delinquent on bills such as its copier lease and its payroll obligations.

In the lawsuit, the SEC says Jindra has also taken several steps to conceal his actions, including erasing the hard drive of a computer used by Envision's former operations chief.

Plus, Envision's financial records were incomplete and inaccurate, the SEC said. For instance, the company's December 2008 balance sheet showed a bank account with a balance of $440,806.16, but bank records showed the company's only balance was $114.48 in one account.

And the SEC said Envision has failed to disclose information about its current financial problems to its clients.

Last November, Jindra transferred $119,175.99 from Envision into personal accounts he and his wife hold. And the lawsuit says Jindra told an employee that he used some of the fee money to buy a Cadillac Escalade for himself.

The SEC said the fees charged in the past year exceeded what's allowed under the agreements Jindra's investors signed.

The monthly advisory fees Envision charges range from 0.75 percent to 2 percent of the customer's assets. The SEC cited several examples when much larger fees were charged. For instance, one account with $1.7 million in assets last August was charged nearly $47,000 in fees during that month even though the customer agreement allowed only a fee of less than $2,000.

After a number of customers complained, Envision returned most of the fee money in May, but the SEC says $256,645 remains missing.

Officials with the Nebraska Department of Banking and Finance say they are aware of the SEC lawsuit and are still evaluating whether to pursue new state action against Jindra. Last summer, Jindra was fined $5,000 by the state for filing a report with misleading or false information in 2007.

State records say Jindra failed to disclose in 2007 that he had previously been suspended by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority for 30 days. Also, Jindra initially claimed on the state registration form to managing $25.5 million in assets but later amended that to $8.6 million.