n Pet Company
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The Starship Snacks Case
In October 2017, Joel J. Margulies, 73, of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Lisa Bershan, 60, and Barry B. Schwartz, 71, were arrested and charged with securities fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit those offenses in connection with an alleged scheme to defraud investors in a company they founded called Starship Snacks. The government’s complaint in the Starship case refers to an unrelated company, also allegedly controlled by Bershan, Schwartz, and Margulies, called All American Pet Company, Inc. (“AAPC”). The company had several websites including www.allamericanpetcompany.com although there is no longer any content on the site.
According to the complaint “AAPC purported to be in the dog food business, and to have developed a type of “power bar” for dogs.” One victim who allegedly lost $25,000 in the Starship scheme had previously invested approximately $160,000 to $180,000 in AAPC around 2013. According to FBI Special Agent Angela Tassone: “Victim-1 invested in AAPC based on representations by Bershan and Schwartz that AAPC’s product would be in tens of thousands of stores within months and was already in production. By in or about 2015, however, Victim-1 understood that Victim-1’s investment in AAPC was valueless, and that AAPC was no longer conducting active business operations (to the extent it ever did).”
At a December 1, 2017 conference before Judge Robert W. Sweet in the Starship case, Robert Allen, the Assistant United States Attorney in charge of the prosecution, compared AAPC to Starship, and described AAPC as a similar scheme where a company is pitched to investors, it claims to have a product, money is raised, and the money is misappropriated by the defendants (Bershan, Schwartz, and Margulies).
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