GYMM<--------another scam Key West and I tried to expose finally goes down!!!!!!!!!
Defunct Brokerage, 12 Brokers Charged in Alleged Stock Scam
New York, April 14 (Bloomberg) -- A defunct New York
brokerage, Meyers Pollock and Robbins Inc., its president and 11
brokers were charged in a federal indictment today with
artificially inflating the price of HealthTech International Inc.
stock.
The New York-based brokerage gave ``secret cash payments'
to brokers who peddled stock and warrants in HealthTech, a small
Mesa, Arizona, company that operates health clubs in Texas,
California and Illinois, U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White said.
The indictment also alleges that the president of Meyers
Pollock, Michael Ploshnick, received a bribe from HealthTech to
sell the stock and warrants.
``As a result of the bribery scheme, the trading price and
volume of HealthTech warrants rose significantly from April 1997
through June 1997,' White said in a statement.
The charges are only the latest in a string of so-called
``pump and dump' cases involving HealthTech that stretches back
to 1997. Prosecutors that year charged 20 people, including high-
level members and associates of the Genovese and Bonanno crime families, with manipulating the price of the stock.
Sixteen people pleaded guilty in that case, and two others,
including HealthTech's chairman, were convicted at a trial. In
November, the chairman, Gordon Hall, was sentenced to seven years
in prison and ordered to pay $3.8 million in restitution.
According to the complaint, the Meyers Pollock brokers were
responsible for more than 80 percent of the customer purchases of
HealthTech warrants in some months.
HealthTech officials did not immediately return a call
seeking comment.
--David Glovin in U.S. District Court in New York (212) 732-9245,
or at dglovin@bloomberg.net, through the New York newsroom (212)
893-3665/gcb |
