by Mike Caswell
David Ricci, the former Pacific International Securities Inc. broker who pleaded guilty to criminal charges in Florida for market manipulation, is asking for a lower sentence than the five-year maximum contained in his plea agreement. He says he has co-operated fully with the government, playing a vital role in convicting his co-accused. He has also endured threats from somebody with ties to organized crime.
Mr. Ricci, 39, will be sentenced on Thursday, May 10, for his role in the pump-and-dump of CO2 Tech Ltd. The government claimed that he and others, including recidivist securities violator Jonathan Curshen, helped boost the stock to $1.65 with manipulative trades in 2007. They obtained $7-million in illegal profits, which they sent to two Israeli men. (All figures are in U.S. dollars.)
On Thursday, May 3, Mr. Ricci filed a sentencing memorandum in which he explains what he sees as the extraordinary lengths he went to in aid of the prosecution. Despite being a Canadian citizen living in Costa Rica, which has no extradition treaty with the U.S., he started co-operating with the FBI within days of learning of an investigation into CO2 Tech's trading.