From San Diego Union Tribune:
<<DON BAUDER
Don Bauder's e-mail address is don.bauder@uniontrib.com
03-Mar-2000 Friday
North County's brash Internet stock commentator, Amr Ibrahim (Anthony)
Elgindy, who boasts that he is on the prowl for fraudulently promoted
stocks, has pleaded guilty to mail fraud in Texas.
Elgindy, known for his swashbuckling style in blasting overhyped stocks
that he sells short (bets that they will go down), broke into tears when
telling me why he pleaded guilty to the charges brought by the U.S.
Attorney's Office in Fort Worth.
In an interview for a column Jan. 16, Elgindy had said he was not guilty of
the charges and would fight them. The trial was to start Monday.
"We did two mock trials in Fort Worth and got a hung jury in both trials,"
Elgindy says. "My attorney felt the prosecutor would pursue the case no
matter what."
He believes that under the worst scenario, he will get four to six months
in a minimum security prison; in the best scenario, he will get probation.
However, the papers prepared by assistant U.S. Attorney David L. Jarvis
specifically state: "There is no agreement on what that sentence will be."
Elgindy says he understands the judge has sentencing discretion.
Jarvis says that Elgindy will remain on bond until his sentencing hearing
May 15.
Elgindy is a commentator on Silicon Investor, an Internet discussion site.
He has his own Web site, Anthonypacific.com, and a company, Pacific
Investigations. Yesterday, he told his readers on Silicon Investor about
his guilty plea.
Early in his career, Elgindy, 32, worked for some real bucket shops,
including Blinder (Blind 'em and Rob 'em) Robinson and Armstrong McKinley.
It was with the latter firm, in which Elgindy had a substantial ownership
position, that he went to Texas in the early 1990s.
Armstrong McKinley was pushing the stocks of the notorious Melvin Lloyd
Richards, the former San Diego stock hustler who recently was sent back to
prison for stock fraud in New York. Earlier, he had been sent to prison in
a case brought by federal officials in San Diego.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in San Diego wrote a letter on Elgindy's behalf
to Texas, saying he had been instrumental in the case against Richards, but
it now refuses to discuss the matter.
The National Association of Securities Dealers, which has revoked Elgindy's
membership, noted in an earlier case against him that he had assisted in
bringing fraudsters to the regulatory body's attention.
The Texas case charges that Elgindy fraudulently overstated his income by
around 100 percent to bilk an insurer, MassMutual, out of $55,366 in
disability payments. Elgindy says he was in severe depression at the time.
He says that the company had earlier brought a civil suit against him over
the same matter. He lost it on summary judgment, but subsequent
negotiations broke down.
Elgindy says that the U.S. Attorney's Office offered him the same
settlement four and a half years ago, but he turned it down.
While in Texas, the government investigated him for drug dealing, among
other things, he says. He says he has never done drug dealing. He blames
brokers at Armstrong McKinley for spreading such rumors.
However, he admits that while he was in Texas, he was "wild and crazy. We
were spending money like crazy, our houses were too big, our trips were too
extravagant, we lived in the fast lane."
Elgindy says that he gave the government information on fraudsters as
atonement for some of his earlier activities with the sleazy brokerage
firms. He says that he would have fought the Texas indictment if he were
single, "but the uncertainty is too scary. I have a wife and three kids."
Del Mar Financial
The Securities and Exchange Commission has entered into a settlement
banning a former employee of Del Mar Financial Services from the brokerage
industry.
Philip S. Brandon, who was banned, was Del Mar's former general manager and
compliance officer, and, according to the SEC, participated in a fraudulent
scheme involving the stock of Comparator Systems, a scandal-plagued run-up
and run-down of the late 1990s.
Also named in the complaint was Kevin Conway Dills, head of Del Mar
Financial. Last year, the SEC charged that Dills and his wife got kickbacks
for selling Comparator shares. The firm, which has since relocated to
Irvine, sold about 20 million shares of Comparator.
In July 1997, as reported in this column, Del Mar Financial closed
abruptly, and customers couldn't reach their brokers. Later, the firm --
known for high-pressure selling of low-priced, low-quality stocks --
reopened before moving from the area.>> |
