Todd Pitcher Willow Cove analyst pushing Energy Power was from this prestigious firm. I have research that shows this firm was connected to organized crime. Why would Todd Pitcher be so keen on Energy Power?
Hampton-Porter, a brokerage house with a history of disciplinary actions and lawsuits against it, has abruptly departed its office in downtown San Diego.
The firm most recently had been at 101 W. Broadway. "No one is in the suite. They are not answering their phones. No one is there to comment," says the manager of the building. The firm was a sub- tenant, but she would not reveal who has the lease.
Customers of Hampton-Porter complained to me that they could not get through. I couldn't reach the firm through its usual numbers. Neither could Patrick Keegan of Krause & Kalfayan, lead lawyer in a civil securities fraud case against the firm.
"I think they are completely gone. Their Web site has been shut down," Keegan says.
I phoned New York lawyer Simon Kogan, who has represented Hampton- Porter in the past. He no longer does, won't say why, and says he has no idea where the firm might be.
What might lead the firm to close down? "Nice try," Kogan laughs.
Attorney Paul Delmore of San Diego is representing Hampton-Porter in two arbitrations, but he decided not to defend it in the civil class-action suits.
"They would have cost a tremendous amount of money to defend," Delmore says. "I have not been officially informed that they have closed their doors," but there has been such discussion.
Until late last year, the firm had been at One America Plaza. "They did not leave with monies owing," says manager Marie Giere.
Nancy Condon, spokeswoman for the National Association of Securities Dealers, or NASD, in Washington, D.C., says the firm has not filed a broker-dealer withdrawal form. "Customers should contact the clearing firm," she says.
Ah, but that's the rub.
"I don't know what is going on with Hampton-Porter," says an official of the clearing firm, Denver-based Fiserv Correspondent Services. "They haven't filed a broker-dealer withdrawal form. We haven't been notified that they are no longer in business."
She declines to say whether trades have been cleared recently. The Fiserv attorney in that office did not return calls.
Last year and early this year, Hampton-Porter faced a number of civil suits. The main ones claim that it and its personnel manipulated the stock of En Pointe Technologies in El Segundo.
A suit by Krause & Kalfayan claims that John William Laurienti and Gregory Walker of Hampton-Porter "orchestrated the pump-and-dump scheme in conjunction with insiders of En Pointe Technologies."
(In a pump-and-dump ploy, a stock is hyped to the heavens and manipulated upward, enabling insiders to sell at large profits.) At the time of the filing, Walker vigorously denied the allegations.
The suit describes Laurienti as "a recidivist stock manipulator," stating that in 1995 the Securities and Exchange Commission barred him from the business for failure to discharge his supervisory duties in an unregistered stock offering.
He has concealed his role at Hampton-Porter, the suit claims.
NASD records show that in 1995, the SEC barred Laurienti from the business for two years and fined him $10,000 for failure to supervise brokers pushing a Canadian penny stock.
The main offending broker sold more than 60,000 shares of the penny stock without disclosing that he was receiving $234,000 in kickbacks, according to NASD records.
Securities regulators in Massachusetts had investigated the matter, suspended Laurienti, and recommended that the SEC investigate. That same year, Maryland denied Laurienti's registration, according to NASD records.
Walker is defending a case alleging failure to supervise, NASD records show.
Last year, Alabama issued a cease-and-desist against Hampton- Porter. It had sold stocks in the state, which had requested more information several times and received none from the firm.
In 1999, when under a different name, the firm was fined $1,000 by the NASD for misreporting trades.
Don Bauder's e-mail address is don.bauder@uniontrib.com. His phone number is (619) 293-1523.
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