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Microcap & Penny Stocks : PanAmerican BanCorp (PABN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: barbara sperino who wrote (38571)6/21/1999 11:07:00 PM
From: Fred C. Dobbs  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 43774
 
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June 21, 1999 22:51

North Carolina man pleads guilty in Internet hoax

LOS ANGELES, June 21 (Reuters) - A man who posted a fake news story on
the Internet earlier this year, in what prosecutors said may have been the first instance of Internet-based stock manipulation, pleaded guilty on Monday to federal securities fraud.

Gary Dale Hoke, 25, a former employee of PairGain Technologies Inc., was arrested on April 15 and charged with posting a bogus story that said PairGain was the target of a billion-dollar corporate takeover.

The fabricated news story, which appeared on a Web site which purported to carry stories from Bloomberg News, sent PairGain stock soaring 31 percent before tumbling back down when the hoax was revealed. Prosecutors said Hoke, since fired by PairGain, may have been the first to perpetrate a "stock manipulation scheme" via the Internet.

Hoke, who pleaded guilty to two charges of securities fraud in federal court in Los Angeles, faces as much as 20 years in prison and $2 million in fines when he is sentenced Aug. 30.

His guilty plea and federal sentencing guidelines mean, however, that he is likely face a lesser penalty. A spokeswoman for PairGain was not immediately available for comment.

In pleading guilty to U.S. District Judge Consuelo Marshall, Hoke admitted on Monday that he posted the bogus report with the purpose of defrauding buyers and sellers of PairGain stock, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Painter. Hoke owned shares of PairGain common stock and options to purchase more, and intended to profit from the phony report, Painter said.

The false news story said PairGain -- a Tustin, California, maker of high-speed access phone products -- was going to be taken over by an Israeli company for $1.35 billion.

The report came amid rumors that PairGain would be acquired by another
company, and investors who paid an inflated price for PairGain stock were defrauded when the price fell back to its pre-hoax levels, prosecutors said.

The seesawing of PairGain stock highlighted the perils that investors face as they weigh tips from Internet bulletin boards and chat rooms, where postings go largely unregulated and rumors spread like wildfire.

Hoke, a computer engineer in PairGain's Raleigh, North Carolina, design center, attempted to hide his identity when posting the fake news story, prosecutors said. FBI agents were able to track him down using Internet Protocol addresses that were recorded when he accessed certain Web page services.



To: barbara sperino who wrote (38571)6/21/1999 11:12:00 PM
From: jhild  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 43774
 
Barbara, that's a good post. I agree with a number of things that you say. It looks to me like a sloppy Form D filing. Understandable in fact for a sale to just two privileged, likely pre-qualified investors.

The negative things are pretty standard for these kinds of filings to, as you say, fully disclose in order to protect themselves. I do disagree though in that, substantial dilution - increasing the outstanding number of shares by 100M for only a $1M return is not so standard. Adding 100M shares does indeed dilute all shareholders. (Note, whoever has suggested that PABN/PRWT is going to be buying back shares to reduce the float is smoking loco weed.)

I think your characterization of ColleenB as releasing the text in some piecemeal way for any sinister purpose is not fair or accurate. It looks to me like she has been sequentially posting the text and I suspect that she is likely transcribing it. (I know I've had to retype all that I have posted.) If she is retyping the document, then I think thanks are in order for what is surely a lot of work.

As you note the issue of Registering the securities becomes the responsibility of the purchasers. But I would be loathe to claim they are restricted for any period as has been suggested.

I also note that many of the things described in the PABN/PRWT story are indeed compatible with things the company has claimed. There are also some things that have only been floated as rumour and as yet not commented on publicly by the company that are consistent. Notably the 84 Lumber thing.

The financial projections are scandalous though. The AFG numbers (30 houses/month), the discarding of the RMC relationship a week later, notwithstanding the relationship with 84 Lumber and the number of stores and loans claimed, the videophones, to mention just a couple.

I have some difficulty believing however, that this was filed on their behalf without their knowledge, especially since we know they have discussed the private placement and the Form D has been mentioned for weeks now.



To: barbara sperino who wrote (38571)6/21/1999 11:32:00 PM
From: J T  Respond to of 43774
 
Good post Barbara!

JT



To: barbara sperino who wrote (38571)6/22/1999 6:27:00 AM
From: ColleenB  Read Replies (3) | Respond to of 43774
 
In the mean time I would suggest that anyone invested in the company take the time to read this whole thing IN CONTEXT and ignore the group of bashers that are trying to feed you the info out of context and doing their usually interpretation of info

Well barbara, I'm sorry that my transcribing is not acceptable to you. If you would perhaps show a bit of effort and shoulder some of the time that goes into this, it would be appreciated. As it is, I'm writing down an entire page long hand before I type it out for posting (I started this after I lost an entire page when I tried to post it and did not have a copy of it). This is quite a tedious process as I'm being painstakingly accurate in my transcriptions. Although I see that I did make one error that got by me, I wrote "Year 200" instead of "Year 2000" once. I especially want to thank those investors who so eagerly pointed this out to me while they continued to sit on their haunches and not even tackle one page.

And as far as providing any of the "usual interpretation", to date, I have not commented. I'm concentrating on transcribing this into a more readable format. Nor did I ever comment on the recent Belize news article that I discovered posted on the Bull, but don't let that stop any of you from accusing me of doing so. It's the SOP of this thread. Hell, I've even had some posters pick on me for posting a page that was generic in content. As if that's my fault. So, make all the [sic] jokes you want, I will continue to transcribe the contents of the Form D and prospectus for the thread as I believe this will turn out to be as much a "hoax" as the warnings that were issued from the Belize government regarding PABN/PRWT's claims. Those warnings were never retracted and were reissued by the new government officials in power after the election.