DD Support Board and Research Team

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Promoter to Pay Over $9.6 Million in Stock Touting and Scalping Scheme

"The Securities and Exchange Commission announced today that on February 12, 2014, a Connecticut federal court entered judgments against a former Connecticut-based stock promoter, Jerry S. Williams, and two companies that he controlled, Monk's Den, LLC and First In Awareness, LLC, who are defendants in a Commission enforcement action filed in 2012 alleging that they operated a fraudulent Internet-based stock touting and scalping scheme. The judgments order the defendants to pay a total of over $9.6 million.

Williams, Monk's Den, and First In Awareness were defendants in a civil fraud action filed by the Commission on July 20, 2012. The Commission's complaint alleged that from 2009 through 2010, Williams recommended two stocks, Cascadia Investments, Inc. and Green Oasis, Inc., to a large group of followers who followed his trading recommendations and strategies. Williams, who was known to his followers as "Monk," used his internet-based message board - called Monk's Den - as well as his in-person seminars (called "Monkinars"), and other means, to encourage people to buy, hold, and accumulate Cascadia and Green Oasis stock. In particular, Williams told his followers that by buying up the outstanding shares, or float, of these companies, they could collectively trigger a "short squeeze" that would allow them to sell their stock to "market makers" that had shorted the stock. Williams falsely stated that he had previously used this "Float Lock Down" strategy successfully to make himself and his followers enormous profits. In fact, unknown to his followers, Williams had been hired by Cascadia and Green Oasis to promote their stock and had been compensated with millions of free and discounted shares of these stocks. Williams secretly sold millions of Cascadia and Green Oasis shares at the same time he was encouraging potential investors to buy, hold and accumulate these stocks. Williams made profits of over $2.3 million from his scheme."

https://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2014/lr22928.htm