Miller – Financial Treason & Crime

Department of Justice, 16 July 2021

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Timothy L. Miller, 55, of Gahanna, Ohio, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to one count of wire fraud and two counts of filing a false income tax return. Miller was charged by Bill of Information on April 26, 2021.

According to court documents, from July 2015 through December 2017 Miller was president of Big Drum USA LTD, an ice cream manufacturer located in Columbus, Ohio. Miller fraudulently withdrew $1,797,127.49 from a Big Drum bank account. The withdrawals consisted of the purchase of cashier’s checks made payable directly to casinos, debit card transactions involving hotels and casinos, and cash withdrawals in Ohio, Nevada, Utah, Iowa, Pennsylvania, California, and Ontario, Canada. Miller concealed his actions by logging the transactions as “petty cash” or “loans” in the ledgers of Big Drum. Continue reading “Article: President of ice cream manufacturer pleads guilty to $1.8 million fraud, tax crime”

06/18/2021

Article: Shell company hijack: Men used SEC filings, fake press releases for stock pump-and-dump scam, feds say

Uncategorized

Shell company hijack: Men used SEC filings, fake press releases for stock pump-and-dump scam, feds say

Dan Mangan, 18 June 2021

Three men engaged in a brazen scheme to “surreptitiously hijack” and take over dormant shell companies, whose stock they then fraudulently inflated to dump to unwitting investors, according to charges in an indictment that was unsealed Friday.

The men from 2017 through 2019 allegedly used fake resignation letters to seize control of four shell companies and then used the Securities and Exchange Commission’s EDGAR public filing system and bogus press releases to fraudulently “pump up” their share prices by claiming new business opportunities, the indictment says. Continue reading “Article: Shell company hijack: Men used SEC filings, fake press releases for stock pump-and-dump scam, feds say”

05/09/202105/10/2021

Article: Feds reportedly probing traders behind GameStop frenzy

Article - Media, Publications

Feds reportedly probing traders behind GameStop frenzy

Donna Miller, 09 May 2021

Federal regulation enforcement authorities are investigating whether or not market manipulation or different monetary felony exercise fueled the meteoric rise of shares corresponding to GameStop and AMC Leisure final month, a report mentioned Thursday.

Investigators from the Justice Division’s fraud part and the US Lawyer’s workplace in San Francisco have requested data from stockbrokers and social media firms that helped spark the buying and selling hysteria that lasted for about two weeks on the finish of January, the Wall Avenue Journal reported, citing unnamed sources. Continue reading “Article: Feds reportedly probing traders behind GameStop frenzy”

03/24/202103/25/2021

Article: German Attorney Pleads Guilty to Money Laundering

Article - Media, Publications

German Attorney Pleads Guilty to Money Laundering

Eastern District of New York, 24 March 2021

Earlier today, at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, Henning Schwarzkopf, a citizen of Germany and an attorney licensed to practice in Germany, pleaded guilty before United States Magistrate Judge Ramon E. Reyes, Jr., to money laundering by transferring funds that he believed to be the proceeds of a securities fraud scheme through the bank account of a Hong Kong shell company controlled by the defendant. Schwarzkopf was arrested on a criminal complaint in October 2020. When sentenced, Schwarzkopf faces up to 20 years in prison, as well as forfeiture and a fine of up to $250,000.

Mark J. Lesko, Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and William F. Sweeney, Jr., Assistant Director-in-Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office (FBI), announced the guilty plea. Continue reading “Article: German Attorney Pleads Guilty to Money Laundering”

03/18/202103/22/2021

Article: ASC orders lifetime bans, penalties in Bluforest pump-and-dump scheme

Article - Media, Publications

ASC orders lifetime bans, penalties in Bluforest pump-and-dump scheme

The Canadian Press, 18 March 2021

CALGARY — The Alberta Securities Commission has ordered permanent market access bans against Cem (Jim) Can, Charles Michael Miller and Bluforest Inc. after finding they acted fraudulently in a pump-and-dump stock market manipulation scheme.

In its sanctioning decision, the provincial regulator also ordered the men to pay a total of about $2.67 million in penalties, costs and returns of ill-gotten gains.

An ASC panel ruled last August that Can and Miller engaged in a deliberate fraud, that Bluforest made misrepresentations and that Can illegally distributed securities to Alberta investors while engaging in activities designed to set an artificial price for Bluforest securities.

In its decision, it says the scheme originated in 2010, when Can acquired control over Greenwood Gold Resources Inc., whose shares traded through US OTC Markets Group, then negotiated a framework in 2012 to repurpose it as a carbon-credit marketing company and changed the name.

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06/23/201605/18/2020

Article: Credit Suisse Tries to Overhaul Its Image, but Problems Remain

Article - Media

Credit Suisse Tries to Overhaul Its Image, but Problems Remain

William D. Cohan

New York Times, 23 June 2016

Wall Street’s efforts to overhaul its culture since the 2008 financial crisis that nearly bankrupted the world’s economy have not been a resounding success, despite calls by prominent regulators to stop rewarding bad behavior.

William C. Dudley, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and one of Wall Street’s most important overseers, has twice held closed-door sessions at the bank, located in downtown Manhattan, to urge top banking executives to overhaul the behavior inside their companies. His goal has been to get bankers to think about what they should do instead of what they can do and get away with.

Read full article.

08/14/201205/18/2020

Filing: Anschutz Corp. v. Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., 11-1305

Filing

Anschutz Corp. v. Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., 11-1305

FindLaw, 14 August 2012

In a suit against Merrill Lynch and others, claiming market manipulation, fraud, control person liability, and negligent misrepresentation, district court’s judgment in favor of the defendants is affirmed where: 1) the market manipulation claims fail for the same reasons identified in Wilson v. Merrill Lynch & Co., which held that the same website disclosure at issue in this case contained sufficient information about Merrill Lynch’s support bidding practices to preclude a market manipulation claim; 2) district court properly dismissed the California Corporations Code claims as plaintiff fails to allege any injury or unlawful conduct in California; and 3) district court properly dismissed the negligent misrepresentation claims against the Rating Agency defendants as plaintiff fails to allege an actionable misrepresentation under New York law.

Read full filing.

03/15/200905/17/2020

Article: In Pursuit of the Naked Short by Alexis Stokes

Article - Academic

In Pursuit of the Naked Short

Alexis Stokes, Texas State University

Journal of Law and Business 5/1 (Spring 2009)

This article explores the origins of naked short-selling litigation; considers
the failures of significant naked short-selling lawsuits in federal court;
surveys the obstacles erected collectively by constitutional standing requirements, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, brokerage firms, death spiral financiers, and the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation; examines the efficacy of Regulation SHO, SEC rule 10b-21, and new FINRA rules; discusses recent state legislation and state court litigation; and identifies non-litigation options to curb naked short-selling. Ultimately, this article seeks to answer the question: If manipulative naked short-selling is more than a mythological scapegoat for
small cap failure, what remedies are, or should be, available?

PDF (62 Pages): Article In Pursuit of the Naked Short

01/30/200403/24/2021

Article: COURTS WIELD HARSH PENALTIES FOR ABUSING THE DISCOVERY PROCESS

Article - Media, Publications

COURTS WIELD HARSH PENALTIES FOR ABUSING THE DISCOVERY PROCESS

Evelyn Alfonso , 30 January 2004

A federal district court last summer issued the ultimate sanction of dismissal due to plaintiffs= abuse of the discovery process and persistent refusal to abide by the court=s discovery orders. Internet Law Library, Inc. v. Southridge Capital Management, 2003 WL 21537782 (S.D.N.Y. July 8, 2003). ITIS, Inc., formerly known as Internet Law Library, Inc., and its CEO, along with several of its shareholders, brought an action against defendant investors alleging their involvement in a scheme to defraud plaintiffs and to manipulate downward the price of ITIS stock in
violation of federal and state laws. Internet Law Library, Inc. v. Southridge Capital Management, 223 F. Supp. 2d 474, 477-78 (S.D.N.Y. 2002).

Judge Robert L. Carter of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed the suit with prejudice as to all defendants due to plaintiffs= repeated attempts to expand and misconstrue the court=s orders on the ground that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(b)(2)(C) authorizes dismissal of a plaintiff=s complaint along with other sanctions if a party Afails to obey an order to provide or permit discovery.@ Internet Law Library, 2003 WL 21537782 at *3. While dismissal is indeed the harshest sanction available to a court, it is appropriate where a party who has disobeyed an order has done so willfully, in bad faith, or is in some way at fault. Id. The court held that plaintiffs= failure to respect the court and its orders justifies dismissal of the complaint as both a remedy and a deterrent to future misconduct. Id. at *4. Continue reading “Article: COURTS WIELD HARSH PENALTIES FOR ABUSING THE DISCOVERY PROCESS”