A former Chicago hedge fund manager has been accused of swindling clients out of about $25m, most of which he spent paying himself and on things like insurance for his airplane, alleges Colorado Deputy Securities Commissioner Gerald Rome.

Last week, a Denver judge froze the assets of Mark Hamilton Yost, who lives in Boulder but formerly lived and worked in Chicago, where he founded Intrinsic Capital Partners. Yost received his MBA from the University of Chicago in 1989, according to the school.

Yost had told investors that the assets in Yost Partnership LP were $28m as of the end of 2009, when they were less than $18,000, the complaint states. The complaint, which was first reported in Colorado media outlets, accuses Yost of paying investors who wanted their money with funds obtained from a loan from a Boulder, Colo., bank where he had been chairman.