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by Mike Caswell
Berardino "Dino" Paolucci Jr., a Toronto-area man facing civil charges in the United States for manipulating an OTC Bulletin Board company, has seen three of his co-defendants settle the case out of court. The three have accepted injunctions barring future violations and have agreed to pay financial penalties that the judge will determine. In settling the case, the men have not admitted any wrongdoing.
The SEC claims that Mr. Paolucci and the others manipulated Ecoland International Inc., an OTC-BB listing that went to $1.24 from 11.2 cents in a 10-day span in 2012. (All figures are in U.S. dollars.) The group boosted the stock with misleading spam and matched trades while dumping $3.29-million in shares, the SEC says. Within months of the scheme the stock had fallen to 13 cents (and is now defunct).
The settlements are contained in consent orders that the SEC filed on Wednesday, Oct. 19, in federal court in Pennsylvania. The three defendants who settled are Louis Buonocore, 61, of Massachusetts; Frank Morelli, 60, of Colorado; and Jeremy Draper, 39, of New York. In addition to the financial penalties, Mr. Draper has agreed to a permanent penny stock ban. (Mr. Buonocore and Mr. Morelli are already banned as a result of prior enforcement actions. The SEC said that the pair boosted another listing, YaFarm Technologies Inc., in 2013.)
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