NEW YORK (Bloomberg) — Former Dallas Cowboys football player Michael Kiselak, now a money manager, was sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission on claims he fraudulently raised $24 million since 2007 while misleading clients about investments.

Kiselak, 42, falsely claimed his Westlake, Texas-based investment firm generated at least two percent monthly profits trading Treasury bills, the SEC wrote in a complaint yesterday at federal court in Fort Worth, Texas. Instead, he entrusted funds to a Redlands, California, venture capital firm that has been unable to account for at least $7 million, it said.

The lawsuit also names the venture capital firm, Gemstar Capital Group Inc., and its president, Jeffrey Sykes, 51. A federal judge agreed to freeze the defendants' assets, the SEC said in a statement. Its suit seeks unspecified fines.

"We're working closely with the SEC to protect the investors," said Cliff Couch, an attorney for Kiselak and his investment firm, Kiselak Capital Group.

Thomas Fehn, a Los Angeles lawyer listed in court records as representing Sykes and Gemstar, didn't immediately return a call seeking comment.

Kiselak, who played centre for the Cowboys from 1998 to 2000, founded his firm in 2007 and ran it mainly ran it from his home, tapping 14 investors for a "friends and family fund", according to the SEC's complaint, which doesn't identify the investors. In April, Kiselak charged clients an undisclosed performance fee based on Gemstar's purported 9.6 percent gain for the first quarter, the agency said.

After he requested documentation of the investments last month, Gemstar sent him a forged brokerage letter, claiming to hold $23.5 million for the firm, according to the SEC's lawsuit. An account balance reported by the outside brokerage was exactly $3 million less, the regulator said.