Stocks n Drugs n FaceBook - USA v. Susser et al

[scion]

I. The Offense Conduct

The defendant pleaded guilty before Your Honor to Count One of a seven- count first superseding Indictment (the “Indictment”) charging him with a variety of offenses. Count One charges the defendant with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and securities fraud, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 371. As described in the Presentence Investigation Report (“PSR”) of the defendant, the conspiracy charged in Count One arose out of the defendant’s participation, with others, in efforts to manipulate the price of so-called “penny stocks” in order to enable large shareholders who were funding the manipulation campaigns to sell their holdings at maximum profit.

In summary, the defendant and other co-conspirators were manipulators for hire who agreed to accept compensation in exchange for their efforts to pump up the price of targeted securities through misleading and fraudulent touts, manipulative trading activities, and other conduct. The purpose of their manipulative activities was to enable those who were funding the manipulation to dump their shares on the market at a hefty profit at the expense of unsuspecting investors. Once the artificial support for price and liquidity created by the manipulation scheme was complete, these unsuspecting investors were left with shares that became virtually valueless and untradeable. Fernandez was paid to tout stocks, to hire others to tout, and to generate trading volume in stocks that were targeted by those funding the schemes. (Presentence Investigation Report (“PSR”) ¶¶ 18-22).

07/09/2012 190 SENTENCING MEMORANDUM by USA as to Ricardo Fernandez.
Doc 190 PDF file
https://viewer.zoho.com/docs/iMdbze