On September 29, 2017 the SEC filed suit against Jason McDiarmid & Kenneth George Cedric Telford for their alleged involvement in the pump and dump of Interactive Multi-Media Auction Corp (IMMA). See the SEC press release.
Excerpt:
According to the complaint, McDiarmid and Telford incorporated IMMA and took it public through a 2013 Form S-1 registration statement, registering a public offering of the company’s common stock by selling shareholders, including two of McDiarmid’s and Telford’s nominees. IMMA’s Form S-1 and its amendments allegedly falsely claimed that IMMA’s chief executive officer, McDiarmid’s friend who had no corporate experience, ran the company, when in fact it was secretly run by McDiarmid and Telford. The complaint also alleges that the S-1s also included lies that certain selling stockholders purchased their shares in IMMA through private placements, which were sham transactions. The complaint also alleges that, after learning that the SEC had subpoenaed testimony from the sister of IMMA’s CEO, who was one of the parties in the sham transactions, McDiarmid suggested a “script” for her testimony, which included false information about her relationship with Telford.
The complaint further alleges that once the Form S-1 went effective, McDiarmid repeated these lies, along with others, to a market maker for IMMA’s stock, who included them in its successful application to obtain clearance from FINRA to quote IMMA’s stock, which was needed for the company to be publicly traded.
According to the complaint, McDiarmid and Telford opened brokerage accounts in the names of nominees in order to sell their stock and, when they deposited IMMA shares into the accounts, they lied about how much stock they owned, how they obtained it, and the relationship of the nominees to them. McDiarmid and Telford also prepared IMMA’s periodic filings made with the SEC, which largely repeated the same lies in the Forms S-1. The complaint further alleges that McDiarmid and Telford organized and implemented a promotional campaign, including email blasts and a boiler room that targeted senior citizens. IMMA’s stock price increased, from $0.93 per share on September 30, 2014 to $1.62 per share on May 1, 2015, during which time McDiarmid and Telford dumped their shares through the nominees, earning them net illegal profits of about $3.1 million.
See the SEC’s complaint (pdf).
From the complaint:
Lastly, from October 2014 to May 2015, McDiarmid and Telford
organized and implemented a promotional campaign, including email blasts and a
boiler room to target senior citizens. As a result of their campaign, IMMA’s stock
price increased significantly, from $0.93 per share on September 30, 2014 to $1.62
per share on May 1, 2015, during which time McDiarmid and Telford dumped their
shares through their nominees for net proceeds of about $3.1 million.
See also the Stockwatch article about the suit (full text available only to subscribers).
Disclaimer. No position in any stocks mentioned and I have no relationship with anyone mentioned in this post. This blog has a terms of use that is incorporated by reference into this post; you can find all my disclaimers and disclosures there as well.