Home >> Stock Forums >> Penny stock promoters plead guilty

Penny stock promoters plead guilty

lil dickie said: "They were guilty of [url=http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200709061154DOWJONESDJONLINE000855_FORTUNE5.htm]pumping and dumping[/url] [quote] Two Arizona-based stock promoters pleaded guilty to securities fraud charges and agreed to be barred from penny-stock deals under a related settlement of a civil lawsuit under a settlement announced Thursday by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Authorities charged the pair dumped millions of shares of penny-stock companies onto investors after artificially inflating the price of the stocks. Altogether, the two men reaped nearly $3 million from the alleged "pump and dump" scheme, which they agreed to return as part of the SEC settlement. Mesa-based Michael Saquella, 47 years old, also known as Michael Paloma, and Lawrence Kaplan, 63, of Scottsdale, also face up to five years in prison based on their guilty pleas, entered earlier this summer and unsealed Wednesday. Sentencing is expected later this year for Saquella and early next year for Kaplan. Attorneys for Saquella and Kaplan weren't immediately available to comment.[/quote] And it wasn't even the first time they got in trouble for it."

Pb3190 said: "Since it wasn't the first time, they should get some jail time for it. On this forum, it is annoying but only happens once in a while. I can't imagine someone doing on the large scale."

lil dickie said: "They do it on massive scales. Email spam the whole bit. Im not sure why it takes so long to catch them."

Rbreb13 said: "[QUOTE=lil dickie]They do it on massive scales. Email spam the whole bit. Im not sure why it takes so long to catch them.[/QUOTE]Its because the SEC doesn't care about the penny markets. The whole pump n' dump, naked shorts, etc. isn't big enough fish and more of a nuisance to them. Sure they bag a few bad guys every now and then, must at least try to keep up appearances.:signs053:"

Pb3190 said: "Maybe it's just my email filter, but I almost never get any stock related spam. Oh well, not like that is a problem or anything!"

lil dickie said: "I get quite a few of them. I know these are usually small potatoes operators. But some are Mafia etc. The language is almost always the same. Exploding - Rockets - Etc"