tillyman
13年前
Scumbags Charles Hansen & Melissa Rice are at it again.
Just thought I'd drop a note for everyone who got burned here that we weren't the only ones. Check out HYGN, RCYT & DRGZ
You all remember Rice she's the pig attorney that the old management (before scumbag Hansen) fired for being incompetent. I guess that was putting it nicely. No wonder when Hansen got his hands on the company it went under.
http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2012/2012-82.htm
Melissa Rice agreed to disgorgement of $422,445, prejudgment interest of $39,239.18, and a penalty of $60,000 as well as a five-year penny stock bar and three-year prohibition from providing professional legal services connected to the offer or sale of securities.
The SEC further alleges that Charles Hansen III of Lighthouse Point, Fla., succeeded Halperin as HydroGenetics CEO in April 2009 and signed five corporate resolutions authorizing HydroGenetics to illegally issue stock that Rice then used along with her opinion letter to facilitate the scheme.
Charles Hansen agreed to a $37,500 penalty...so far.
Bet he ends up in jail with Rice once the DOJ gets their hands on them.
According to the SEC's other complaint filed in Miami, Sepe and Halperin schemed with Miami-based attorney Melissa Rice and others to illegally issue and liquidate 90 million unregistered shares of HydroGenetics from April 2008 until at least June 2009. Sepe headed a group that purchased convertible debt of a South Florida publicly-held company. He then formed HydroGenetics and parsed out portions of the convertible debt to friends, family, and others who converted the debt to stock that they then sold publicly. Sepe sold HydroGenetics stock without any exemption from registration the securities with the SEC. Halperin was the HydroGenetics CEO and a director. He executed corporate resolutions to help issue millions of shares of HydroGenetics stock, including 11 million shares to his daughter who he told to sell it and funnel a portion of the illegal proceeds back to him. Rice assisted Sepe in converting convertible debt to unrestricted HydroGenetics shares, and wrote four opinion letters improperly opining that the Rule 144 safe harbor was applicable and the debt could be converted to unrestricted HydroGenetics shares. Rice also sold her shares of HydroGenetics stock.
conrad2
17年前
Dragan thanks for your wisdom and dilegence.
losses could have been much worse.
I agree this really seemed like a great idea. and the puerto rico trial seemed like a huge Wow,,, and from that and "their national launch back in sept of 2005"
Gawd,,, then all the times they told of a nasdaq,,,
then getting celeb endorsement,,,, seemed like that might be that might be the turning point,,, and Granite coming along and getting a CFO etc,,, seemed like maybe that was it...
and then the change of upper level management...
all seemed like they would be turning points...
oh well,
Thanks Dragan I appreciate your ability to resist temptation.
dragan7
17年前
Zcooler,
Now, we can have post-mortem MLTO analysis...I wish never would happen, but MLTO is almost anything, but dead....No financing, huge debt, possible pending work licence suspension, and/or paying penalty for fraudulent billing....I hope, I am wrong, still believe that MLTO business idea is outstanding...
I have "discovered" MLTO around May 2005, and soon after that got loaded with big position, average price range 1.50-1.90...MM was very difficult to start with, and there were days that I would have to place market buy orders at 500 shares, or less, because MM would fill me like 879 shares on my 1000 market buy order.....
At that point, I was really impressed with MLTO business idea, and even business model ( like pre-IPO trial in Puerto Rico ), and thought they were for real, and only short period of time would be between than and 20 dollars stock price, and plus..., with buyout for "sure" ( possible PLMD, as number one buyer...)
All of this made me big time MLTO "pumper", even one of my friends ( Chris ) had formed MLTO Yahoo group. I was yapping about "best stock ever", till management execution started to suck, and undelivered, and over-inflated promises made me leery....
Is that you who posted about RW ( incl. his mug shots ) on my MLTO blog site, under alias "the ugly truth now"? If that was you, thank you! I had some ideas, but that post convinced me to go and visit MLTO ASAP...
I had some suspicion after stock was pumped to 9 dollars, and after that had steady decline ( thanks to my trading rules I have sold part of may position around 7-8 dollars, although I should have sell all, and convert six digits paper profit to real money, but I was greedy, and I wanted seven digits profit?!!! What a fool! )
After stock price steady decline, I have decided to visit my "best ever company" in Pompano Beach. That was eye opener, while Doubloon, and his side-kick co-moderator, were saying that MLTO is booming, phones were buzzing, and future is "blue sky", all I have found was new building, pretty much looking not many activity around, arm guard in front, and receptionist, and Raymond's secretary telling me that no one was that day available to see me, and no one will be available for the whole week ( after I have mentioned that I will stay in Ft. Lauderdale for a week ). More than anything else telling was clear panic, and fear on their faces....
And at point the real truth hit me on the head, and I went home, and soon after have sold over 70K shares in two days ( 3.30-3.70 range ). As MLTO MM always been "difficult" person, I was sending sell at market price orders every 15 seconds, selling 500 shares lots....You can imagine how long it took me to sell my position, and at one point TD suspended my selling, because I have lost count for how many shares I have sold, and I was trying to sell more than I owned....
This made MM confused, he did not understand what was going on ( he taught probably somebody was trying to drop the price, like shorts attack ), and he was buying all my shares without dropping the price, he even got the price up on the end....I was ready to sell for any price, but MM was holding price up probably been afraid not to trigger lager sell off after more than average daily volume in red...Thank you Mr.MM, that made me to get out with around 20K profit..
As for Doubloon, he is probably not RW himself, but he is very much connected with him, and his Tback Capital. Doubloon himself admitted been involved with some financing deals, and private placement for some of RW penny companies..If I remember correctly Doubloon said, he has continuous pager connection with Tback...I have saved that post, and will re-post it, if anyone interested...He may have sent you that hand-carved box, but I doubt that Doubloon lost any money on MLTO. He is too smart not to see what was going on, and I believe ( although never had a proof ) that he was at the minimum pumping on IH board, and erasing any post that could bring up some evidence about the fraud......So, yes, I could be wrong, but I am convinced that Doubloon was a part of "pump, and dump" action, and he probably sold his position around the pick price...
On the end, moral of the story:
1. never ever trust anyone, but yourself ( thanks Dick for this one )
2. all penny stocks are more than speculative, and many are designed for fraud
3. as soon as you have any reasonable profit with penny stock, get out
4. if the story sounds too good to be true, most likely is not true...
5. three the most important things for any penny stock, or small cap are: management, and management, and management...
6. if you put any serious money in penny stock, or small cap, go and visit them
Good luck, and good health to all of you
Dragan
PS: Zcooler thanks again for your credible posts, objective analysis....I would be very glad, if you accept my already open invitation to join our small closed type investment group....We would like to have one more bright, honest member. If interested send me e-mail at dragan7777777777@yahoo.ca
zcooler
17年前
pinkrock-
I don't think it's fair to call Doubloon an apologist. I think he was simply duped like a lot of us here, and probably lost money like many of us, including me. For what it's worth to the board, I'll tell you that Doubloon is a man of his word, and when the stock went to basicly 0 and the volume to near nil, he did send me the hand carved box we had a wager for....the box cost me $12K, unfortunately.
One important point I would like to make is that these boards should allow for posting of all facts, and opinions, if they can be backed up with compelling evidence.
I posted on this forum Ron Williams Mugshot and details of his previous conviction on about a year and a half ago. The post was deleted by the moderator as it was not good for the stock to have this information posted. At that time, I think the stock was trading around $3, and when I sold most, although I did hold some to $2, and traded it a few times when I got used to it's pattern to reduce my losses. The point is, that new investors might have been able to see that Williams/Tbeck was a con-man, and stayed away. It could have not only saved current investors money by giving them information they would have determined made this stock a sell, but new investors a reason to stay away.
The fact that the posts I made about RW and his criminal background, including his mugshot from the State of Florida's Correctional web-site were not allowed to stay, cost people money, I am sure.
This was a board used simply to pump this stock, and any contrary opinions or evidence that there was something wrong was not allowed.
It's unfortunate, IMO, that IHUB allows their boards to be used by pennypumpers to pump and dump. IHUB is a nest of spammers, scammers and scumbags for the most part, and except for occasionally checking in here on MLTO's demise, I stay away.
Happy Holidays Everyone.
pinkrock
17年前
RON WILLIAMS OF TBECK CAPITAL ARRESTED!!
FBI-SEC Action Leads to Kickback Cases
After five separate sting operations involving penny stocks, SEC files civil actions against 7 individuals and 3 firms, while 6 people are hit with criminal charges.
Stephen Taub and Roy Harris
CFO.com | US
December 10, 2007
Federal regulators, targeting five separate schemes that involved penny stocks and alleged kickbacks to a fictitious hedge fund, have criminally indicted six individuals and filed civil charges against 10 individuals or companies they controlled.
The Securities and Exchange Commission said the schemes were uncovered in a Federal Bureau of Investigation sting operation that is part of a recent cooperation agreement between the FBI and the SEC. The criminal prosecutions were conducted by the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of Florida.
advertisement According to the commission, the individuals charged are insiders or promoters of publicly traded companies, and live in Florida, New York, California, or Nevada. The individuals made stock sales to a person they believed to be the manager of a West Palm Beach, Calif., hedge fund, Fillmore Capital, paying the manager illegal kickbacks. In reality, however, Fillmore Capital was not a hedge fund, and the manager was an undercover FBI agent.
"This case illustrates the commission’s ability to work together with criminal authorities in creative ways to uncover fraudulent schemes and to protect our markets," said Linda Chatman Thomsen, director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement.
The SEC charged the following with securities fraud: Rex A. Morden of Henderson, Nev.; William L. Haynes of Palm City, Fla.; Efrim Gjonbalaj of Boynton Beach, Fla.; Mark Foglia of Hypoluxo, Fla.; Virgil G. Williams of Escondido, Calif.; and Vincent Cammarata of New York,and Sean P. Sheehan of Juno Beach, Calif., along with corporate entities Affinity Financial Group Inc. of Henderson, Nev., Real Asset Management LLC of Palm City, and Western Financial Services Inc. of Lantana, Fla.
The individuals charged criminally were Foglia, Williams, Morden, Gjonbalaj, and Haynes, according to a joint announcement by U.S. attorney R. Alexander Acosta and Jonathan I. Solomon, the FBI's special agent in charge for the Miami Field Division. The sixth individual criminally charged was Ron Williams of Miami.
CFO.com's efforts to reach the individuals and companies were unsuccessful.
According to the indictments, an FBI agent played the role of a corrupt manager of an unregulated hedge fund that had been dubbed Fillmore Capital. The six individuals agreed to pay an undisclosed kickback to the fund's supposed manager if the manager got Fillmore to purchase certain specified securities.
The individuals charged also agreed to hide the kickbacks to the manager "through a sham consulting contract," according to the U.S. attorney. The SEC said that all the defendants agreed to pay a kickback, and that with one exception the defendants actually did pay the promised kickback after the hedge fund bought the stock defendants were promoting.
If convicted of all counts, Ron Williams faces a maximum of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each count. Foglia, Virgil Williams, Morden, Gjonbalaj, and Haynes each face a maximum of 20 years in prison and a fine of $500,000 on each securities fraud count. In addition, Gjonbalaj and Haynes face a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the conspiracy count, and up to 20 years and a $250,000 fine on each wire/mail fraud count.
The SEC is seeking permanent injunctions in the case; an order that Cammarata and Haynes disgorge illegally received gains, with prejudgment interest; and an order imposing civil monetary penalties on all the defendants.
The commission also is seeking an officer and director bar against Virgil Williams and penny stock bars against all the individual defendants.
This is not Haynes’s first brush with federal regulators. The SEC pointed out that Haynes previously was enjoined from further violations of the antifraud and registration provisions of the federal securities laws after he participated in a $7 million offering fraud. In addition, Haynes was previously barred from associating with a broker-dealer based on the entry of the permanent injunction.
» Next news story from Today in Finance
Readers' Comments
Comment on this article...
Related Articles
Oh, the Inanity!
August 08, 2007
Ex-Penny Stock CFO Found Guilty
August 06, 2007
Count 'Em: 63 CFOs Convicted Since 2002
August 03, 2007
Inside Today in Finance
How Mortgage Bailout Strains Accounting
PCAOB Fines Deloitte $1 Million
Deals: A Calgary Stampede
Software: Flu Diligence
Commercial Rents: A Tale of Six Cities
Conrad Black Sentenced in Fraud Case
FBI-SEC Action Leads to Kickback Cases
SEC Ends Probe of XM Satellite Radio
M&A Error Trips Up Software Company
» See all Today in Finance
Commentary and opinion
Is the United States on the Brink of Bankruptcy?
» View CFO Blog
Visit our Sponsor
Payment Solutions
provided by MasterCard®
MasterCard Corporate
Payment Solutions
Our proprietary global information system helps you control expenditures so you can uncover profits in new places like never before.
- Fleet Solutions
- Multinational Program
- Purchasing Solutions
- Smart Data Online
We Deliver
Newsletters
Capital Markets/Banking
Today in Finance
Webcasts
Notify me of future events
Email Alerts
Cash Management
Finance
Enter your email address to begin receiving updates on these topics.
Request a reprint
advertisement
advertisement
About Us Advertise Contact Us Sitemap Privacy Subscribe Affiliates RSS Feeds © CFO Publishing Corporation 2007. All rights reserved.
Arbo99
17年前
Here is the Article....
6 Arrested Over Plots to Pump Up Share Prices
Sign In to E-Mail or Save This
Print
Reprints
Share
Del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Newsvine
Permalink
By JENNY ANDERSON
Published: December 8, 2007
What began with an undercover F.B.I. agent’s posing as a corrupt hedge fund manager led to the indictments of six people yesterday on charges of fraud in the shadowy world of penny stocks, federal prosecutors said.
A year-long investigation code-named Missed Information uncovered five separate stock schemes, according to the United States attorney’s office for the Southern District of Florida.
In each case, the undercover agent posed as a hedge fund manager at Fillmore Capital, a fake firm created by the F.B.I. in Palm Beach.
The unidentified agent got word out to the penny stock community that he was willing to buy stocks in struggling companies in return for bribes. Prosecutors said he accepted kickbacks from company insiders and stock promoters for buying stocks, some through an online brokerage account, to pump up prices.
The case was brought in conjunction with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which brought civil charges against seven defendants; six defendants were indicted by the United States attorney on criminal charges in the case, the S.E.C. said.
The charges exposed a murky underworld of penny stocks, a longtime staple of boiler rooms running illegal pump-and-dump schemes. Such shares trade over the counter, rather than on an exchange.
In each of the cases, company insiders or stock promoters tried to build support for their share prices by making a deal with the undercover hedge fund manager to buy large stakes of shares. In return, the insiders would pay the hedge fund manager a kickback, usually 25 to 35 percent of the total purchase price, the prosecutors said.
In each instance, the agent insisted he had to hide the transaction from his hedge fund clients — because of a “fiduciary obligation” to them, leading the parties to execute a fake consulting agreement with a fake company, Global Connect Services. “This case illustrates the commission’s ability to work together with criminal authorities in creative ways to uncover fraudulent schemes and to protect our markets,” said Linda Chatman Thomsen, director of the S.E.C.’s division of enforcement.
The five suspected penny-stock schemes were remarkably similar. In mid-April, prosecutors say, Virgil G. Williams, the 59-year-old chief executive of Asgard Holdings, a Nevada-based investment firm, contacted the agent posing as a hedge fund manager and asked him to buy Asgard Holdings shares.
Mr. Williams agreed to pay the agent 25 percent of the price of the transaction as a kickback, the prosecutors said. The next day, Mr. Williams contacted his broker to make sure that the broker accepted the appropriate bid in the marketplace, the complaint says.
The agent told Mr. Williams he had a fiduciary duty to his hedge fund requiring that he hide the kickback. As a result, the complaint charges, the agent and Mr. Williams agreed to set up a fake consulting agreement to hide the bribe.
But then the operation almost went awry. On April 24, the agent and the stock owner talked about the transaction and agreed to the terms, but the next day, the seller said he was uncomfortable with the deal and did not want to do anything illegal. Two days later, Mr. Williams rescinded the offer because he thought he was part of a sting operation, the complaint says.
In late July, Mr. Williams contacted the agent again to do the deal. In August, the agent used an E-Trade account to buy two million shares of Asgard Holdings at $0.015 a share. In the preceding month, only 172,00 shares had been traded.
A few days later, a Florida corporation believed to be controlled by Mr. Williams wired $7,500 to the agent’s fake consulting firm.
In a separate scheme, according to the complaint, the agent entered into a deal with William L. Haynes, a 42-year-old Palm City, Fla., resident and stock promoter, to have the hedge fund buy shares in Environmental Service, a home environmental inspection company.
The agent bought one million shares of the company. Prosecutors said he had agreed to receive a kickback of 35 percent, which included a 2.5 percent kickback to Efrim Gjonbalaj, a colleague of Mr. Haynes who introduced the two.
After receiving a $532.68 payment, Mr. Gjonbalaj returned the money to the agent with a letter saying he did not recall participating in any dealing with the agent, prosecutors said.
Many of the schemes involved individuals with past regulatory infractions. Mr. Haynes was enjoined by the S.E.C. in 2001 in a fraud case associated with a $7 million stock offering and barred from associating with a broker- dealer. A defendant named in the civil suit, Vincent Cammarata, is on supervised release after serving time in federal prison on drug-related charges.
Other criminal defendants include Ron Williams, 57, of Miami; Mark Foglia, 52, of Hypoluxo, Fla., and Rex Morden, 57, of Henderson, Nev.
If convicted, Mr. Haynes faces a fine of $5 million and 25 years in jail while the others face 20 years in jail and potential fines of $250,000 to $500,000.
The other civil defendant is Sean Sheehan.
Lawyers for the defendants could not be reached for comment.
moldme1
17年前
MEDirect Enters into Forbearance Agreement with Lenders
POMPANO BEACH, Fla.--MEDirect Latino, Inc. (Pink Sheets:MLTO) today
announced that it has entered into a forbearance agreement (the
"Forbearance Agreement") with its Lenders. The company announced in
October that it had failed to make a scheduled interest payment to its
Lenders on Notes outstanding under its Amended Loan and Security
Agreement (the "Loan Agreement"). Principal and accrued interest
outstanding on the Notes is $6,097,058 and $137,183, respectively.
Under the Loan Agreement, the company has pledged all of its assets as
Collateral.
Under the terms of the Forbearance Agreement, the company acknowledged
that it has defaulted on its interest payments under the Loan
Agreement, and the Lenders have agreed to forbear from exercising their
rights and remedies pursuant to the default until November 20, 2007, or
earlier, at the discretion of the Lenders. The company is unable to
cure the default. In addition, the Lenders have advanced an additional
$300,000 to the company to allow it to continue its operations while
both the company and its Lenders explore strategic alternatives. The
Forbearance Agreement provides that the company will fully cooperate
with the Lenders in connection with any efforts to dispose of some or
all of the Collateral pursuant to the Uniform Commercial Code.
The company has reduced its staff to approximately 27 employees, and
continues to reduce its operating expenses as it and the Lenders
explore various options.
The company also announced today that Mr. James LeGates, its chief
financial officer, is leaving the company, effective immediately. Mr.
Robert Lautz, a nominee director of the Lenders, resigned from the
board on October 29, 2007.
Hot Features
プレミアム
登録して無料でリアルタイムの株価、インタラクティブチャート、ライブオプションフローなどを入手してください。
Mr. Zen
17年前
