From today's SEC Digest:
ALVIS SMITH, JR., SENTENCED FOR SECURITIES AND BANK FRAUDS
The Commission announced that that on October 18, Judge Walter S. Smith, Jr., of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas at Waco sentenced Alvis Colin Smith, Jr., of Waco, Texas, to 30 months in prison and ordered him to make restitution in an amount to be determined at a January 24, 2003 hearing. The conviction and sentence were based on Mr. Smith's plea to an information that charged him with one count of securities fraud and one count of bank fraud.
The criminal charges against Mr. Smith grew out of the Commission's investigation of Mr. Smith's fraudulent scheme in operating Great White Marine and Recreation, Inc. On July 29, 1999, the Commission filed a civil complaint alleging that Smith had been a shareholder, director and officer of and had controlled Great White, a Waco-based corporation, and that from October 1997 through July 1999, Mr. Smith had orchestrated a fraudulent, unregistered distribution of Great White common stock. The complaint also alleged that at the time of the misconduct, Great White common stock was a penny stock and that Mr. Smith had saturated the market with false and misleading information about Great White's financial condition and business prospects, which resulted in a substantial rise in the price of Great White common stock. Smith had sold approximately 14 million shares of Great White stock into the artificially inflated market and had realized substantial personal profits from those sales. On June 19, 2001, Judge Smith enjoined Great White and Mr. Smith from further securities frauds and from selling unregistered securities and ordered Smith to disgorge $3 million, together with several vehicles, a $100,000 appearance bond and certain real estate. For further information, see LR-16225 (July 30, 1999), LR-16364 (November 18, 1999), LR-16435 (February 14, 2000), LR-17062 (July 6, 2001), LR-17194 (October 16, 2001), and LR-17814 (Oct. 30, 2002). [SEC v. Great White Marine & Recreation, Inc., et al., Civil Action No. W-99-CA-230, W.D. Tex., Judge Smith] (LR-17814)
sec.gov |
