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by Mike Caswell

Wayne Weaver, one of two Canadians charged for the Jammin' Java Corp. pump-and-dump, has strongly protested the $104-million penalty the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is seeking against him. (All figures are in U.S. dollars.) He says that the figure amounts to more than four times any gains he realized and is 12 times the settlement amount for all of his co-defendants combined. This is despite the fact that the SEC accused somebody else of being the scheme's architect.

Mr. Weaver's complaints come about a month after the SEC sought the $104-million sanction from him. The regulator said that offshore accounts associated with him sold millions of Jammin' Java shares. This occurred while others boosted the stock with misleading claims about a coffee business. The SEC claimed that the scheme generated $77.6-million in illegal profits, with $47.4-million of the money going to Mr. Weaver.

For his part, Mr. Weaver says that the SEC's proposed $104-million penalty is beyond excessive. He points out that his co-defendants settled the case for "dramatically and disproportionately" smaller amounts. Those co-defendants included Kelowna's Shane Whittle, the alleged architect of the scheme (who settled the case without admitting any wrongdoing). Mr. Whittle's sanction amounted to $2.41-million. Most other defendants received even smaller sanctions.

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