NONPROFIT BOSS' PAST RAISES EYEBROWS
By RODDY BOYD
August 27, 2006 -- Rufus Paul Harris, the CEO of Conversion Solutions Holdings Corp., a small Georgia-based holding company, recently predicted his company's stock would soon soar to $15 a share.
Quite a boast for a penny-stock company whose shares closed Friday at 86 cents a share.
Perhaps Harris was emboldened by the $1.3 billion in funding CSH received from an obscure Atlanta-based nonprofit in the last two months.
If so, investors may want to take note - the nonprofit, The Humanitarian & Scientific World Foundation, is run by a trustee with an interesting past.
Stephen O. Canady runs the foundation, along with a series of other businesses - Bayou Life Sciences, Alliance Asset Management, Canady Holdings and Bayou Tech - out of a single Atlanta office.
However, a call to the address listed in Georgia Secretary of State filings revealed that a computer services business is located there. A woman who answered the phone there last week said she had never heard of any of the businesses or their principals.
Furthermore, Georgia's securities regulators tagged Canady's Bayou Tech in 2004 for selling unregistered securities to state residents, according to filings. In June, Missouri regulators charged Canady Holdings with securities fraud related to selling unregistered private placements.
Perhaps strangest of all, in December 2003, records indicate Canady was convicted of deposit account fraud - passing a bad check - for an amount records show was "over $499."
Repeated phone calls to Canady were not returned. Two weeks ago, The Post interviewed Canady, who insisted his foundation's primary source of funding - a gentleman by the name of Adnan Sakli - was a figure of "national security" importance.
Canady said he couldn't provide any more information about Sakli.
The Post could not locate Sakli or discover a prior employment history. |
