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SEC case: Ribotsky trying to ferret out from SEC details of any deals they have done with anybody to get information/testimony against him/NIR. SEC pushing back but they have delivered some details re whom they have talked to (sometimes in cooperation with the DoJ).
Dunno if this info means anything to anybody?
Interviews/testimony/etc:
Corey Ribotsky 2/8-9/2011
Edward Bronson 7/14/2010
Matthew Girard 8/19/2009
Marc Grober 3/18/2011
Joan Grant 3/16/2011
Matthew Morris 1/28/2011
Michael Morris 1/28/2011
Michael Woloshin 1/26/2011
Paul Lipschitz 10/22/2009
Herbert Leeming 9/14/2009 & 9/28/2009
Michael Lagow 10/22/2009
Bradley Rudman 10/16/2009
John Antonio 9/18/2009
Nicholas Cirillo 10/7/2009
Richard Surber 9/29/2009
Andrew Weissman, Esq.
Counsel to Edward Bronson
10/6/2010
Justin Keener 9/29/2009
Corey Ribotsky 12/4/2009
Dennis Schall 9/15/2009, 3/5/2010 &
10/21/2010
Bart Friedman 8/31/2010
Gregory Giugliano 9/1/2010
Peter Wu 2/24/2010
Kerry Stegman 2/17/2010 & 10/22/2010
Nikhol Parisi (Stegman) 2/17/2010
Michael Minars 7/7/2010
Richard Moscowitz 12/3/2010
Matthew Girard 11/16/2009 & 10/15/2010
Tsevtan Beloreshki 9/10/2009 & 9/22/2010
Reuvan Pinsky 12/1/2009 & 9/20/2010
Evan Katz 3/30/2011
Michael Gelmon 1 1/1 9/2009 & 12/10/2009
Corey Gelmon 1 1/19/2009 & 12/10/2009
Michael Glaubman 7/21/2010
Mark Shefts 10/29/2009
Agostino von Hassell 10/13/2010
Ken Marshall 12/2/2010
Mariano Grandval 12/2/2010
Jonathan Lee 10/12/2010
Russell Olson 10/14/2010
Mitchell Hull 8/24/2011
Brad Ackerman 11/17/2010
Joan Grant 10/21/2009, 12/1 1/2009 &
11/4/2010
Lou Kabzan 12/11/2009
Jonathan Schechter 11/19/2009, 1/22/2010,
2/16/2010 & 10/25/2010
Jordan Feinstein 10/15/2010
Paul Schwartz 1 1/12/2009 & 11/19/2010
Debbie Grassia 11/23/2010
Lloyd Groveman 5/17/2010 Daryl Dworkin 12/15/2009,6/4/2010,
9/30/2010 & 10/12/2010
Kenneth Yellin 4/9/2010,5/27/2010,
7/15/2010 & 10/13/2010
Nicholas Cocco 8/31/2011
Steven Humphries 10/20/2009
John Buckeye Epstein 6/21/2010
Jason Halpern 2/16/2011
Berk Nowak 12/10/2010
Alex Boguslavsky 12/6/2010
Marc Powers, Esq. 3/10/2010
Delmar Janevoc 11/17/2010
Alex Kanakaris 10/28/2009
Chun Lai 10/4/2010
Warren Michaels 8/31/2010
Michael Morris 8/24/2010
Robert Seller 3/24/2011
Thomas Steinberg 11/17/2010
Christopher Tribley 3/23/2011
--------------------------
CEO/counsel interviews: ADMH, WLSI, ARIO, JMJ Financial, CEKI, GPTC, CCNG, SSHS
I value my Kindle more than I do several members of my family.
On the other hand, some members of my family get their only income from owning a small regional independent book publisher ... Burying myself in my Kindle helps me to forget about their prospects & the likelihood of my having to bail them out before too long.
Apart from his federal court record, Hugh aka Eugene William Austin Jr's NY state court record is also rather uninspiring, eg default judgement for ~$44K against him in favor of Foxwoods casino; apparently unsuccessful attempt to sue his own mother.
From Jan 2009 thru May 2011 the company by my count issued ~100M shares of common stock to Austin and his associated entitites Wonderland Capital, Imperial Consulting and DMBM Inc. (See the detailed issuance listing in the annual for 2010, filed in May 2011.)
About 49M of these were issued to DMBM, apparently from mid 2010, all free trading, for "conversion of debt" and/or "services", priced at $0.01 or $0.02. During this period VRAL appears to have traded generally in a $0.03 - $0.06 range.
About 30M were issued to Wonderland, again all free trading, in a bunch of Rule 504 deals, at $0.02 (plus some at $0.01 for "conversion of debt"/"services").
Wonderland also got 500K pref shares, 10%+ of the total issued, convertible into 5M common, as part of the deal whereby it lent $100K to help "fast track" the BioProcess Algae tests.
Austin personally got 250K of the prefs as part of the original deal in which these were issued to insiders in exchange for the acquisition by VRAL of a company owned by them. During the period he converted these prefs into 2.5M free-trading common.
The Imperial shares were also free-trading, issued for their IR services presumably, at a prices ranging from $0.01 to $0.10.
I would assume that all free trading common were dumped on the market.
Hopefully the 2011 annual will have similarly detailed disclosure about issuance in the period since May 2011.
Nausium's just down the road from Homonym, right?
One thing to watch for: VG had ~$540K owing to DMBM Inc which came due on 31st March - see Note 7(e) to the 30th June 2011 financials. This amount is convertible into common at half a penny per share ie ~108 million shares.
It may be that DMBM was converting and dumping as part of the volume so far this year and/or will convert and dump now.
DMBM Inc is "affiliated" with Hugh Austin's Wonderland Capital, according to VG filings. Austin of course is the shady individual long associated with VG via his Imperial Consulting, Wonderland etc, against whom the receiver in the Liberte viaticals scam obtained a $100M+ default judgement on charges of assisting with laundering the scam proceeds.
A now-deleted LinkedIn profile for one Damon Roberts claimed he was the "owner" of DMBM. Roberts used to appear as the host of the abysmal "Wide World of Stocks", part of Austin's Imperial Consulting, eg "interviewing" Haig here:
Or in layman's terms, dilution spreads the misery to more shareholders, and a misery shared is a misery less painful, as Jesus or somebody like that once said.
Ha! I heard that one in London several decades ago :)
That's just wrong. NYC's grunge is its flesh!
Good old down-to-earth honest masturbation, I think.
As usual, they will be late with their annual filing at OTC Markets: http://www.otcmarkets.com/financialReportViewer?symbol=VRAL&id=76390
In my fanatsy, Cromwell pursues this aim by helping private start-ups with compelling technology and market opportunity stories raise money from sophisticated angel investors and legitimate early-stage venture outfits.
In my fantasy, OTC Markets gets zapped by the DoJ for facilitating illegal on-line gambling.
99% of the costumers don't mind how a product really works or want to know what parts it consists of.
And so who is surprised that we end up with tragedies like this:
A look at the most prominent guy on VRAL's "advisory board", Luc Montagnier: http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/11/luc_montagnier_the_nobel_disease_strikes.php
He appears to have morphed into a woo-woo.
Anyway, I doubt that most of the "advisory board" actually do very much. One of VRAL's filings at OTC Markets included a sample agt for one of these guys, which required him to devote just one day a year to VRAL plus take calls from Haig from time to time, for which he would be paid $15K (or something like that) .
That blog also seems to be a pretty good place for informed & nuanced views on things like DCA and "chronic Lyme disease".
A good blogger for info on medical quackery and the people who promote it: http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/
Scams in the medical space often manage to round up impressive-looking identities as advisors etc. Until you dig it into it, it's hard to be aware of how often these characters are actually woo-woo's. A nice discussion of this: http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/11/luc_montagnier_the_nobel_disease_strikes.php
I think there is no evidence anywhere that rate of new company formation has any particular economic benefits. If you could measure the rate of good company formation it might be a different story.
From something I posted elsewhere a while ago:
This belief in rate of company formation is very widespread and embedded amongst those who are vocal on development issues - without real regard for all the evidence supporting the commonsense intuition that it's the rate of *good* company formation that matters, or for the very large proportion of scams amongst new companies in many regions.
(You also saw this kind of crude regard for company formation rates being expressed in the recent microcap fraud roundtable session.)
As an example: The Milken Institute publishes an interesting annual set of indices ranking US states on various innovation measures: www.milkeninstitute.org/publications/publications.taf?cat=ResRep&function=detail&ID=38801259
Nevada ranks a lowly 43 on the combined index and down around there on most of the many sub-indices. But one of the sub-indices is rate of business formation per 100,000 population - included because people in this kind of area always look at it as one of the key stats. And for this, Nevada is at 19th place - no doubt bolstered by the large number of scams which are starting up there all the time.
Most of the sub-indices correlate strongly with state median household incomes. More innovation stuff tends to mean richer people (and/or vice versa, of course). The business formation sub-index doesn't correlate with MHI at all. It's meaningless, because it includes lots & lots of scams.
The judge has reserved his decision on the plea deal until Latorella's sentencing.
Meanwhile, Austin W. Marxe, MD of Special Situations Funds, has written to the judge asking him to into account his fund's $4M+ losses in his sentencing decision. He says Latorella's crimes "caused reputational damage to our firm" and "significantly affected the lives of investors who put their trust in us".
If I were one of his investors, I would certainly be quizzing Marxe about how an obvious scam like Locateplus passed his diligence; why he used my money in a financing round most of which seems to have gone immediately out the door to pay off debts to Laurus; and why he was receptive to deals placed by the dubious Laidlaw & Co (ie, the Sands brothers) in the first place.
Special Situations is supposed to be smart special opportunity finder, not a bottom-of-the-food-chain bag-holder. Another murky LP story.
According to the doc properties, the update today was authored by "Mike", as was their last update. Presumably this is Michael Capizzano who has been on & off with VRAL forever. (See ref to him leaving the company in the long 2002 PR posted previously.)
Capizzano, a Canadian, seems to have been associated with Phillip W. Knight, of Top Hat Investments, VRAL's dodgy "investor" back in 2002. See http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1203457/000102670002000279/fm20f.txt
In June 2001, we entered a 50:50 joint venture with 936450 Ontario Ltd and Horus Capital Ltd (O & HC) for the rights to use our Mushroom Technology in North America. O & HC are investment companies of Mr Philip Knight and Mr Michael Capizzano focused on investments in agricultural companies.
I would guess that Capizzano's departure in 2002 was linked somehow to VRAL claiming to have severed ties with Top Hat at around the same time. Whatever, it certainly didn't prevent Haig from bringing him back again before too long.
On Knight, see fwiw http://www.phillipwknight.com/ - somebody who doesn't like him much :)
Haig has this history of asociating himself with shady-looking characters. See all this stuff: http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=62616160 There's also a William A. Malis with whom Haig goes back forever and who I will post something about if I get around to it.
On the other hand, the company obviously has also attracted interest from high-profile legit characters like Phelps, Gerstner etc etc. I think these people have made dicks of themselves by doing little or no diligence on VRAL before exposing themselves to it, but it keeps the story interesting.
Just the usual Penny Stockholm Syndrome.
Too sad/pathetic to be very funny, IMO.
Roddy Boyd asking for donations for The Financial Investigator: http://www.thefinancialinvestigator.com/?p=699
A worthy cause!
Who's going to get rid of him? He and his brother Arthur are the board. The common shareholders have very little say in anything - the preferred shares are guaranteed 50.1% of any shareholder vote, and these are held by Haig + what appear to be his cronies.
For this thing to get anywhere I think you would need to put in credible management, convert all of the debt and liabilities into equity and get at least $2-3M new funding at some realistic valuation. But I can't see any of that happening.
Never got around to posting this on the YHOO board before it turned completely into a kindergarten - too long etc. People who wrongly believe that history doesn't matter should ignore this. Others may wish to contemplate just how long this story has been running while accomplishing not very much apart from selling stock.
Below is a VRAL PR from Oct 2002 which I don't think is on their site anymore. This was a year after the thing started to trade publically after a reverse merge onto the OTCBB & after VRAL's first dumpedy-dump had taken the thing from ~$1.90 to ~$0.15.
You can see from the PR that this attracted the attention of the SEC. IMO, the purpose of the PR was probably to distance Haig in the SEC investigation from all the pump activity going on then. The usual VRAL stuff - at this time the Big Opportunity was a fast-track reg approval for the AIDS drug in Mexico etc etc. I think they only got around to telling the market that nothing was actually happening there with this PR, several months late.
A different set of luminaries lending their names to VRAL, a different story about facilities which turned out not to be the case etc etc but pretty much the same story to be washed & recycled several times over the next decade.
Also familiar: a shady-looking "financer", at this time Phillip W. Knight from Canada and his Top Hat Investments.
Before the dump entered its final stages, in May 2002, Haig borrowed $120K against his VRAL stock from entities associated with David H. Siegel, a scammer shut down by the SEC not long after - see http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/lr17638.htm I'd guess that Haig's intent was to lock in some value before the stock was completely crunched and while he was subject to insider selling restrictions. He certainly picked an extremely shady place to go for this accomodation.
Anyway, Haig defaulted on the loan, and the Siegel receiver sued him for it, alleging fradulent inducement amongst other things. Haig didn't answer the complaint and the receiver had a civil default judgement entered against him (case # 03-20642 in Fed Dist Sth FLA). As far as I know, VRAL never said anything to th market about this. Presumably the receiver dumped the shares Haig had pledged.
Of course the SEC investigation of VRAL never resulted in anything.
The long Oct 2002 PR (retrieved via Factiva):
--------------------------------------------
Viral Genetics, Inc. Status Update
1817 words
1 October 2002
Internet Wire
ITWR
English
(c) Copyright 2002 Internet Wire, Inc.
SOUTH PASADENA, CA -- (INTERNET WIRE) -- 01-10-2002 -- Viral Genetics, Inc. (OTCBB: <ticker name="VRAL">VRAL</ticker>) is providing this update of its status.
Recent Private Placement
On July 24, 2002, Viral Genetics, Inc., completed the conversion of certain debt obligations to equity. From April 2001 to July 2002, Top Hat Investments Inc. of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, advanced funds to or for Viral Genetics to support operations in the total amount of $1,042,947, which includes $499,000 of direct cash advances. Top Hat Investments also acquired outstanding Viral Genetics notes in the amount of $280,275. All of these obligations were cancelled in the exchange. Top Hat Investments is a private investment firm owned by one or more private Canadian investors.
Viral Genetics issued 1,654,027 units to Top Hat Investments in exchange for cancellation of $1,323,222 of debt obligations payable to Top Hat Investments. Each unit consists of one share of common stock and a warrant to purchase one-half share of common stock. Consequently, Viral Genetics issued to Top Hat Investments 1,654,027 shares of common stock and warrants to purchase 827,013 shares of common stock at an exercise price of $1.00 per share that expire June 16, 2003. If the warrant is not exercised within 45 days following the date on which the Mexican government or authorized agency thereof issues a license, permit, or other authorization for the sale of our Thymus Nuclear Protein ("TNP") product in Mexico, then the exercise price automatically increases to $1.25 per share. Viral Genetics was subsequently advised by Top hat Investments that it assigned the warrants to purchase 827,013 to one or more unidentified third parties.
On October 1, 2002, Viral Genetics terminated the pursuit of any further financing through Top Hat Investments or any of its affiliates in order to focus its efforts on seeking financing from other private sources.
Current Management and Employees
The executive officers and directors of Viral Genetics are Haig Keledjian, Paul Hayward, Dr. Hampar Karageozian, and Arthur Keledjian. Other than our executive officers, we employ Harry Zhabilov, Jr. as a researcher, and one clerical person. Michael Capizzano, who previously held the title of Vice President of Business Development, is no longer associated with Viral Genetics.
All enquiries or requests for information should be directly solely to Haig Keledjian, President, telephone (626) 441-3282.
SEC Investigation
By letter dated August 13, 2002, Viral Genetics was advised the Securities and Exchange Commission issued a formal order of investigation through its Northeast Regional Office, which Viral Genetics believes pertains to press releases and other information that has been publicly disseminated about Viral Genetics. Viral Genetics intends to cooperate with the Securities and Exchange Commission in the investigation.
No Facility
In December 2001, Viral Genetics announced that it had entered into an agreement to purchase real property and buildings in South Pasadena, California to be used as a production and laboratory facility. The agreement to purchase the facility was subsequently terminated due to environmental concerns regarding the property and lack of capital with which to purchase and develop the property. Viral Genetics has not identified any other property to acquire and lacks the financial resources to pursue any property acquisition or development.
Viral Genetics does not have a facility large enough for laboratory and production lines necessary for large-scale commercial production of TNP. In the event Viral Genetics should obtain a license to distribute its product in any country, it is likely we will need to contract with third party manufacturers to produce TNP. In the past we have used third party manufacturers to produce TNP used in our clinical trials. We have no agreement or understanding with any third party for the production of TNP at the present time. Our inability to establish manufacturing arrangements in the future to commercialize TNP would substantially impair our ability to implement our business.
Mexico
Since filing its New Drug Application for TNP with the Mexican Department of Health in February of this year, the Viral Genetics has responded to follow-up questions from the Mexican government and met on numerous occasions with representatives of the Mexican government in an effort to obtain a license to sell TNP for use by late-stage AIDS patients who are not responding effectively to other treatment options. We are seeking the license in conjunction with an application to conduct a further clinical trial on early stage AIDS patients. We have yet to obtain a license or approval of any kind from Mexico and cannot predict when, if ever, such a license might be issued.
Untrustworthy Public Chat
It has come to the attention of Viral Genetics that information about it is being disseminated, discussed and/or analyzed in various media, including, internet "chat rooms," bulletin boards such as Raging Bull, and discussion forums related to HIV, AIDS and other health issues.
Public investors are urged not to base their investment decisions on any message or item that is not disseminated by Viral Genetics. Public investors are urged to consider only that information which is presented by Viral Genetics in its periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and press releases that are originated and disseminated by Viral Genetics.
Viral Genetics is a development stage company founded in 1995 to discover, develop and commercialize therapeutic and diagnostic systems for the treatment of viral diseases. For the six months ended June 30, 2002, we recognized a net loss of $560,401, and recognized a net loss of $1,356,117 for the year ended December 31, 2001. We expect to continue to recognize substantial losses for the foreseeable future. At June 30, 2002, we had a working capital deficit of $2,318,923. Although our working capital deficit improved somewhat as a result of the exchange of debt for equity described above, we continue to be almost entirely dependent on outside sources to finance our operations. We have no meaningful agreements or arrangements in place to raise additional capital for our operations. These factors, together with our existing liabilities, raise substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern.
Investment in our common stock should be considered highly speculative and subject to a substantial risk of loss. Our business is subject to a number of risks, some of which are as follows.
- We have been engaged in research and development of our TNP product in the past, and have not commenced commercial distribution of our product. There is no assurance that our product will gain acceptance as a treatment for AIDS or any other viral infection. If we are unable to gain such acceptance, it is unlikely we will be able to achieve any meaningful revenue or successfully implement our business.
- Our proposed international business could be affected by changes in intellectual property legal protections and remedies, trade regulations and procedures and actions affecting approval, production, pricing, reimbursement and marketing of products, as well as by unstable governments and legal systems, intergovernmental disputes and possible nationalization.
- Cost-containment measures employed by governments that have the effect of limiting patient access to medicines could affect the growth and profitability of our operations in some countries.
- Competition from manufacturers of generic drugs is a major challenge in the U.S. and is growing internationally. Loss of patent protection typically leads to significant loss of sales in the U.S. market. Generic drug manufacturers and others could challenge the patents covering our product.
- Risks and uncertainties particularly apply with respect to future prospects for our TNP product. There can be no assurance as to if or when we will receive regulatory approval for our product. There are also many considerations that can affect marketing of pharmaceutical products around the world. Regulatory delays, the inability to successfully complete clinical trials, claims and concerns about safety and efficacy, new discoveries, patent disputes and claims about adverse side effects are a few of the factors that could adversely affect the commercialization of our product.
- Difficulties or delays in product manufacturing or marketing, including, but not limited to, the inability to build up production capacity commensurate with demand, or the failure to predict market demand for, or to gain market acceptance of, approved products, could affect future results.
- We cannot predict with accuracy the timing or impact of the introduction of competitive products or their possible future effect on our sales. Products that potentially could compete with our products are in various stages of development, and could be introduced and become accepted forms of treatment before approval of our product.
- Our future results could be affected by changes in business, political and economic conditions, including the cost and availability of insurance, due to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S., the threat of future terrorist activity in the U.S. and other parts of the world and related U.S. military action overseas.
- We may become involved in patent, product liability, and consumer litigations and additional matters that arise from time to time in the ordinary course of our business. These include challenges to the coverage and/or validity of patents on products or processes and allegations of injuries caused by our drug products. Litigation is inherently unpredictable, and excessive verdicts that are not justified by the evidence can occur. Litigation in the future may have a material adverse impact on our financial condition and results of operations.
Cautionary Statement for Purposes of the "Safe Harbor" Provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: All statements, other than historical facts, included in the foregoing news release regarding the company's business strategies and plans of management for future operations are "forward looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These statements, which include, without limitation, words such as "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "project" and "intend" are based on management's beliefs and assumptions, and on information currently available to management. Forward-looking statements involve certain known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the company's actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. These factors include, among others, the ability to successfully implement its business plan; uncertainties relating to business and economic conditions in markets in which the company operates; ability to obtain financing to satisfy business and operational expenses; retention of key employees; customer plans and commitments; dependence on intellectual property right; and the competitive environment in which the company operates and other risks detailed from time to time in the company's periodic reports filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulatory authorities.
Contact: Haig Keledjian, President
Voice: 626-441-3282
FWIW, see that Latorella last week pled to one conspiracy count which includied parts of the PDGT scam.
http://www.fbi.gov/boston/press-releases/2012/ex-ceo-of-north-shore-company-guilty-of-securities-fraud-conspiracy
james Fields will probably cut his own deal soon, I expect.
Faaaaarrrk!
Not a lot. From the docket:
02/16/2012 SCHEDULING ORDER: The Court has received plaintiff's letter dated February 14, 2012 requesting an adjournment of the oral argument scheduled for May 3, 2012. IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the request is granted The oral argument is adjourned to May 17, 2012 at 2:00 p.m. at the Central Islip Courthouse located at 100 Federal Plaza, Central Islip, NY 11722. SO ORDERED. Ordered by Judge Joseph F. Bianco on 2/16/2012. (O'Neil, Jacquelyn) (Entered: 02/16/2012)
02/27/2012 31 Letter Requesting Adjournment to file resonse to Motion to Dismiss by Securities and Exchange Commission (Byrne, Kenneth) (Entered: 02/27/2012)
02/27/2012 32 Letter In Opposition to Plaintiff's Request for an Extension by Corey Ribotsky, The NIR Group, LLC (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit) (Hirsch, Douglas) (Entered: 02/27/2012)
02/27/2012 33 Letter In Response to Defendant's Opposition to Plaintiff's Request for an Adjournment of Time to Reply to Motion to Dismiss by Securities and Exchange Commission (Byrne, Kenneth) (Entered: 02/27/2012)
02/29/2012 SCHEDULING ORDER: The Court has received the SEC's request for a 30-day extension to file its opposition to defendants' motion to dismiss. The Court has also received defendants' opposition to that request. IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the request is granted and the opposition is now due on April 20, 2012. Defendants' reply is due on May 10, 2012. Although defendants object, there is no prejudice because neither the date of oral argument nor the Court's decision will be delayed by the modified scheduled. The Court also has provided defendants with an additional week to submit a reply on the modified schedule because of the issues raised by counsel for defendants. SO ORDERED. Ordered by Judge Joseph F. Bianco on 2/29/2012. (O'Neil, Jacquelyn) (Entered: 02/29/2012)
If through some kind of brain spasm I had ever taken Timmy seriously enough to pay him $10K for anything I'd probably be kicking myself also, but I don't think I'd be shouting it to the world.
... the line between MLM and pyramid schemes
A very faint line, I think.
Qatloos used to have a good archive of stuff about MLM scams: http://www.quatloos.com/mlm.php Dunno how actively this is being updated now.
Should have happened years ago - the thing was an obvious fraud since 2002, and there were a bunch of different investigations going on from at least 2005/2006.
Things of more general interest:
- Most of the Locateplus assets have ended up in the hands of Vinod Gupta, the InfoUSA founder/ex-chair who settled for $7M (I think) with the SEC on charges of looting his conmpany not long ago. A couple of his underlings were found guilty last week for facilitating the looting: http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2012/lr22276.htm
The main business of these assets is aggregating public personal records and providing search access to law enforcement (DEA, customs, homeland security, FBI, local police). Is it great from a public interest perspective for these services to be provided by a shady guy like Gupta, or for him to have access to this kind of personal data?
Part of Latorella's crime was using the identity of a dead guy with no death record to front some of the sham companies involved etc. He found this ID using the assets in question.
Just saying. Anyway, nobody else seems to care about the issue.
- Still bemusing how Ken Kaiser, formerly head of the FBI's criminal investigation division, could have ended up invovled with Locateplus. Email trails filed in this case show him being actively courted by Locateplus before his mid-2009 resignation from the FBI; meeting with DoJ and FBI officials shortly afterwards on behalf of LP; trying to steer the investigation into giving a scare to Dutchess.
Dutchess was one of the pass-the-bag "funders" for LP (others were Laurus, Cornell, Ribotsky and Austin Marxe's Special Situations), and had some kind of thing going with James Fields, ex-CFO and co-accused. At the relevant time the company and Dutchess/Fields were at loggerheads, it seems.
Kaiser seems to have clearly violated federal law in meeting with FBI agents on LP's behalf so soon after his resignation. Why would he put himself at this risk? (The prosecution states that Kaiser "may well" have violated the law, but claims it is irrelevant for this case.)
The email trails seem to show LP director, ex-FBI Boston SAC Jim Ahearn bullying other directors to speed up Kaiser's hiring.
Unless Kaiser actually gets charged or the DoJ/SEC get around to doing anything against some of the other parties involved, I guess this will all remain murky.
But if you look carefully, you can see where they've photoshopped out "Julia Gillard" of Australia and the Saudi "finance minister" having an embarassing moment while both instinctively trying to snap the same fly out of the air with their long, sticky, reptilian tongues.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/G20_-_Cumbre_de_Cannes_-_20011103.jpg
Also, the "Nicholas Sarkozy" entity once almost blew the whole gaffe when it inadvertently spawned a clutch of several hundred eggs during a press briefing. Fortunately for them the press is also controlled by malevolent giant alien lizard people, as can be seen from this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rupert_Murdoch_2011_Shankbone_3.JPG
Like this:
First, note 0.019607 = 1/51, and that there are 51 pref B shares being issued.
Next, the "Numerator" here at any time is (1/51) * X, where X is the number of common stock issued and outstanding at that time.
Let Y = "Numerator" at any time.
The voting power of each pref B at any time is (Y/0.49) - Y = Y *(1/0.49 - 1) = Y * (2.04-1) = 1.04 * Y = 1.04 * (1/51) * X.
So the total voting power of the 51 new pref B's at any time is 1.04 * X. In other words, at any time, the pref B's collectively have greater voting power than the X common issued & outstanding at that time.
It's just a mechanism to ensure that the pref B's have more than 50% of the vote, no matter how many more common get issued. Fundamentally it means that only the pref B's have any real underlying value - the common shares are just gambling chips to print off and sell to suckers.
Scenario No. 2: A company encourages investors to cash out of their poor-performing investments to purchase gold. The investor ultimately ends up with a large bag of gold-colored coins with no monetary value.
You'd hope that at least the coins would have chocolate fillings.
If that ever happened to me I'd tell absolutely nobody. After whimpering to myself for a little while, I'd change my name and move to a new city.
Pls make it go away.
It's exactly the color my evil/mental step-mother wears all the time, and this makes me anxious, as if I had suddenly seen her out of the corner of my eye.
I'm getting "Under Construction/ The site you are trying to view does not currently have a default page blah blah" with IE9 for investorshub.advfn.com
FF is fine.
EDIT: Now it's working.
Dealbreaker used to have fun with Sykes: http://dealbreaker.com/?s=sykes
I wonder how things went in court on Friday The 20th. Coreys lawyers were asking charges to be dropped ? Anyone have any details ?
From the docket, below. Nothing very interesting.
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01/20/2012 21 Minute Entry for proceedings held before Magistrate Judge Gary R. Brown: Counsel present. Initial Conference Hearing held on 1/20/2012. Parties are to submit a revised joint scheduling order via ECF prior to the next conference. The SEC is to provide dfts with a list of parties who testified and relevant testimony by 1/27/2012 and an index of documents by 2/3/2012. The next telephone status conference will be held on 2/10/2012 at 1:30 PM. Parties are directed to have all counsel on the line before contacting the Court at 631-712-5700. (Brienza, Lauren) (Entered: 01/20/2012)
Geekily:
As of now valuations on SP500 companies look like so -
EV/Revenue: 10th percentile 0.6X; median 1.9X; 90th percentile 4.7X.
EV/EBITDA: 5.0X; 8.4X; 15.2X.
Diff between "market value" which obviously is whatever the market is paying for it and "fair value", "intrinsic value" or somesuc,h which is what you think the company *should* be worth, if you think the market is pricing the thing incorrectly, or if there isn't a real market, eg for a private company.
5X EBITDA is a reasonable rule of thumb for a private company without evident big growth prospects or long-term visibility on earnings, 20X EBITDA for a major company with a sustainable leading position in a long-term growing market.
But these metrics aren't fundamental, rather they fall out of analyses of future cash flow forecasts, risks, visibility horizon etc.
I just assumed you're Linda Chatman Thomsen, doing penance.
Joke!
The form thing is a PITA.