4 Former El Paso Traders to Plead Guilty
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Four former El Paso Corp. EP.N  natural gas traders will plead guilty to criminal charges for  reporting bogus trade prices to an industry publication and  will cooperate with a U.S. government probe, prosecutors said  on Wednesday.
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Two defendants in the O.J. Simpson robbery case pleaded guilty on Tuesday in Las Vegas to reduced charges as part of a deal to testify against the former football star and others in the theft of sports memorabilia.
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Four former El Paso Corp. natural gas traders have been charged with making false reports used to calculate the index price of natural gas, US Attorney Michael Shelby said Wednesday.
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(InfoWorld) - Three U.S. men and one man living in France have pleaded guilty to charges related to a stock manipulation scheme that included sending out tens of millions of spam messages to pump up the stock value of 15 companies, the U.S. Department of Justice said Thursday. The four men cost investors more than $20 million in their so-called pump-and-dump scheme, the DOJ said. Michael Saquella, also known as Michael Paloma, 47, of Mesa, Arizona., pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria on Aug. 20. Lawrence J. Kaplan, 63, of Scottsdale, Arizona, pleaded guilty on July 25, in Alexandria to similar charges. Henry "Hank" J. Zemla, 38, of Harris Township, Michigan, also pleaded guilty in federal court in Alexandria on July 20. The three defendants are scheduled to be sentenced between late November and early February. Saquella pleaded guilty to a criminal information charging him with one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and one count of electronic mail fraud involving 15 publicly traded companies. Kaplan pleaded guilty to a criminal information charging him with one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud involving 14 of these companies, and Zemla pleaded guilty to a criminal information charging him with one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud involving one of the companies. The plea agreements for all three defendants were unsealed Thursday. The scheme involved stocks from companies including eDollars, Xtreme Technologies, and PokerBook Gaming. Justin Medlin, 26, of Paris, also pleaded guilty in federal court in Alexandria on Aug. 20 to a criminal information charging him with one count of electronic mail fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and electronic mail fraud involving seven of the companies. Medlin's plea agreement was unsealed Thursday. He will be sentenced on Nov. 30. The maximum penalties for each of the fraud charges is five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The stock manipulation schemes generally followed a similar pattern, the DOJ said. The defendants generally solicited small, privately held companies that needed to raise money. One of the defendants would offer to help the company raise significant money through the sale of the company's stock, and then the defendants would list the company's shares on the Pink Sheets, a price quotation system primarily used for trading small companies' stocks. The group of defendants would then gain control of a majority of the stock of the company, the DOJ said. The co-conspirators then engaged in deceptive and manipulative trading practices to boost the price and volume of the company's stock, the DOJ said. In some cases, members of the conspiracy encouraged investors to purchase companies' stock by giving the investors free-trading shares in return for buying blocks of shares at agreed-upon prices, thereby creating the illusion of trading volume and active investor interest. In other instances, members of the conspiracy bought and sold shares of the companies' stock between and among themselves to give the appearance of investor interest, the DOJ said. The co-conspirators also falsely manipulated the price and volume of each company's stock by making materially false and misleading statements in news releases and in spam e-mails distributed by Medlin and other spammers to tens of millions of U.S. e-mail addresses, in an effort to create artificial demand for the companies' stock, the DOJ said. In related actions, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has filed civil charges against Saquella and Kaplan for their part in the schemes to manipulate the price and volume of the companies' securities. Three other defendants, Steven P. Luscko, Gregory A. Neu, and Brian G. Brunette, have pleaded guilty and have been sentenced in federal court in Alexandria for their roles in related stock manipulation schemes. Luscko and Neu were each sentenced to five years in prison and Brunette was sentenced to one year in prison.
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Two more former natural gas traders for El Paso Corp. have pleaded guilty to reporting bogus deals in a widening investigation of the industry, the US Attorney&#39;s Office said.
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Four executives at Infineon Technologies AG and its US subsidiary, Infineon Technologies North America Corp., are to plead guilty to participating in an international conspiracy to fix prices in the DRAM market, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) said
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Three former El Paso Corp natural gas traders were convicted on Thursday of reporting false deals to manipulate gas prices from 2000 to 2002.
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William S. Lerach is expected to plead guilty to a criminal conspiracy charge in connection with a class-action scheme involving his former firm.
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A former Enron Corp.   assistant treasurer pleaded guilty on Tuesday in U.S. District Court to conspiracy to commit securities fraud for disguising the company's weak finances before its dramatic collapse.
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Five former managers from a major crate and pallet manufacturer that employed illegal immigrants pleaded guilty Tuesday, 10 months after federal agents staged sweeping raids at company sites in 26 states.
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Two brothers who headed Colombia's powerful Cali cocaine cartel pleaded guilty yesterday to drug trafficking charges in Miami and agreed to turn over billions in assets.
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Three former El Paso Corp   natural gas traders were convicted on Thursday of reporting  false deals to manipulate gas prices from 2000 to 2002.
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former executive at Qwest Communications International, who was scheduled to go on trial next month on charges related to accounting irregularities, will plead guilty, his lawyer said yesterday.
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A former Alcatel executive has pleaded guilty to paying more than $2.5 million in bribes to secure a telephone contract with Costa Rica's state telecommunications agency, the U.S. Department of Justice said Thursday.
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Two Colombian brothers pleaded guilty on   Tuesday to conspiring to smuggle more than 200 tons of cocaine   into the United States, a deal that prosecutors said shut down   a cartel that once controlled 80 percent of the world's supply   of the drug.
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Four men charged in a bid-rigging scheme to win $79 million in contracts from the U.S. Army Medical Command have reached plea agreements that includes prison time, federal prosecutors said.
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Five former traders were indicted yesterday in Houston on charges of reporting false trades to industry newsletters to manipulate natural gas prices.