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by Mike Caswell

Christopher Bongiorno, the Ohio man charged in the United States over his touting of TSX Venture Exchange listing Petroteq Energy Inc. and another stock, must pay $929,729 in restitution, a judge has ordered. (All figures are in U.S. dollars.) Prosecutors said that Mr. Bongiorno, using the alias "John Powers," operated call rooms and received illegal kickbacks. He was part of an operation that manipulated thinly traded stocks from 2016 to 2019, according to prosecutors.

The $929,729 in restitution is set out in an amended judgment entered on Dec. 30, 2025, in federal court in Ohio. Mr. Bongiorno, who previously pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, did not contest the amount. He must pay 10 per cent of his income while he is on supervised release, a period of three years.

The order comes with Mr. Bongiorno, 47, having nearly completed the one-year jail term that he received for the scheme. He has been serving that sentence at FCI Elkton, a low-security federal prison in Ohio. The Bureau of Prisons lists his release date as Jan. 16, 2026.

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