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by Mike Caswell

Jeremy Draper, one of the men accused of helping Canadian Berardino "Dino" Paolucci Jr. with an OTC Bulletin Board manipulation, has asked that the judge spare him any substantial financial penalty. He says that he is poor and that his role in the scheme was minimal. He simply provided a shell company and sold shares on the instructions of others.

Mr. Draper is one of five defendants in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's Ecoland International Inc. case. The SEC claimed that a group of men headed by Mr. Paolucci boosted Ecoland with misleading spam and matched trades in 2012. At the same time, they dumped $3.29-million worth of shares, the SEC said. (All figures are in U.S. dollars.)

Mr. Draper settled the case without a trial, and is waiting for the judge to determine his fine. The SEC has not requested any specific amount, but it did describe his role as being more than a nominal one. According to the regulator, he provided the shell that became Ecoland. He also helped the others sell shares to the public at inflated prices. This entailed relaying instructions on the specific prices and quantities of stock to sell each day, the SEC claimed.

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