OptimizeRx Corporation (OPRX)

[MoneyMan]

Federal authorities scrutinizing Vicis Capital execs
http://sharesleuth.com/2010/01/05/federal_authorities_are_invest/

Vicis put $3.5 million into OptimizeRx Corp. (OTCBB: OPRX.OB), a Michigan company that offers online coupons, discounts or rebates on prescription and nonprescription medication. In return for that money in September 2008, the hedge fund got preferred stock convertible to 3.5 million common shares, plus warrants for 6 million additional common shares at $2 each.
Midtown Partners got a placement fee of $350,000. OptimizeRx said the fee also included warrants to buy 600,000 shares at $2 each and 350,000 shares at $1 each.
OptimizeRx's stock closed Monday at $2.25 a share, although only 2,500 shares changed hands.
Sharesleuth noted that the chart of OptimizeRx's major shareholders in its annual SEC filing lists a trust for the benefit of "Jillene Pinella" as the owner of 9.4 percent of its shares. Our research found that the name has been consistently misspelled in the company's SEC filings, and that the beneficiary is actually Jillene Panella, the wife of Dante M. Panella, a Tampa-area financier and stock promoter.
The SEC brought civil charges against Dante Panella in 2008 in connection with a pump-and-dump scheme involving a company called Global Development and Environmental Resources Inc. The SEC alleged that Panella helped to hype the company's stock, then profited by selling $1.1 million in illegally issued shares. A federal judge ordered him in November to pay $457,574 in disgorgement, interest and penalties, and barred him from participating in the offering of a penny stock for five years.