DD Support Board and Research Team

[1manband]

SEC bars attorney for shell scheme

https://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/2018/34-82743.pdf

Jonathan D. Strum, age 59, resides in Washington, D.C. and is an attorney admitted to practice in Washington, D.C. Strum has never held any securities licenses and is not registered with the Commission in any capacity.

The Commission’s complaint alleges, among other things, that between 2011 and 2014, Strum aided and abetted a scheme to prepare fourteen fraudulent shell companies (the “Issuers”) to issue shares to the public and then to sell the shell companies in reverse mergers or other changes in control. The complaint alleges that Strum, among other things, (a) assisted in drafting the Issuers’ Form S-1 registration statements and periodic reports, (b) assisted in drafting letters to the Commission responding to staff comments and questions regarding the Form S-1 registration statements, and (c) signed opinion letters sent to certain of the Issuers’ transfer agents to induce the transfer agents to issue unregistered shares to nominee shareholders. The complaint alleges that Strum knew or was reckless in not knowing that the registration statements and other documents that he assisted in preparing with regard to the Issuers contained materially false and misleading statements and omitted material facts concerning, among other things, the Issuers’ purported directors, officers, and business plans.

Strum is suspended from appearing or practicing before the Commission as an attorney.