Do you believe the jury should have returned a verdict of Not Guilty on all counts?
Based on the way the government presented the evidence, the way in which the evidence was (hardly) refuted, and the way the judge instructed the jury, I think the jury can't be faulted for their verdict.
Now that I've answered your question, what does your survey accomplish? Nothing of any value.
For example, Tony was found guilty of trading against his advice on VLPI. Read his chronology and tell me if, assuming you understand the terminology, you think the government was accurate in how they presented things to the jury. Message 21767410
Let's now look at the bigger picture: are "trading against advice" charges relevant to anthonypacific.com? Normally this applies to brokers and their relationship with their clients. I can see it extended to pump and dumps where the people pumping a stock and selling into it know full well they are deceiving people. I truly doubt Tony purposefully trashed a stock in order to buy cheap shares.
Tony's site had a disclaimer on it (see below). Could he have been any more disclaimful (for lack of a better word)? No, I don't think disclaimers make one immune from scamming people. But I do think they serve as adequate protection for chat and message board sites where it's just not possible, or even expected, that one will announce each and every trade or promise to never do something other than what they just posted regardless of how fast the market is moving or how fast one is automatically stopped out.
On the one hand, the government has this "big list" of unindicted co-conspirators, read: site members who traded along with Tony. Then, on the other hand, to make the trading-against-advice charges stick, they attempt to portray the site members as sheep to be fleeced. Doesn't it seem a bit odd to you that they never produced a single site member as a witness to coorborate the charges of fleecing?
So if you really want to foster a constructive discussion, how about querying others for insight on this one explicit charge?
- Jeff
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Partial Disclaimer on AnthonyPacific.com:
"THE SITE OFFERS NO FINANCIAL ADVICE IN ANY FORM WHATSOEVER, We are not a registered investment advisor nor are we affiliated with any broker dealer. Investments in equity securities are risky and use of the information on our Site is at the investor's sole risk. Investors should not rely on the information provided by us. This site is merely a closed and private community of people who do not want the outside noise associated with free message boards. People are allowed to discuss any topic which does not violate the Terms of use as written here. NO INVESTMENT ADVICE IS GIVEN AND NO IMPLIED RESULTS SHOULD EVER BE EXPECTED. THIS SITE HAS NO TRACK RECORD, AND NO SUCH CALCULATIONS ARE MADE."
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