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To: StockDung who wrote (52)	10/8/2004 6:56:24 PM
From: SEC-ond-chance	Respond to of 53

Interesting that Bockler's civil case with the SEC wasn't the end of SB's problems. Allen Witz squealed........ Lawyer is squealing A LAWYER INVOLVED in many controversial small stock promotions pleaded guilty last week to the pumping-and-dumping of an Internet stock in 1999. In a Newark, N.J., federal district court, Allen Barry Witz pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit stock fraud. Witz said he schemed with four unnamed associates to inflate the shares of Global Datatel, a company that rose to $379 million in market value on false claims about its Latin American Internet service. Witz is facing five years behind bars. The guilty plea may be good news to the investing public, but it could be bad news for former associates of the 63-year-old lawyer. Witz's defense attorney Lawrence S. Feld and federal prosecutors say that Witz has been cooperating with the prosecutors in an undercover capacity for over three years. In the 1990s, the Beverly Hills lawyer proved expert at structuring penny-stock deals that involved overseas stock placements and mergers into the shells of dormant public companies ("Buyer Beware," Aug. 25, 1997). Such maneuvers can allow stock promoters to hide their trades, and last week Witz told U.S. District Judge Joseph A. Greenaway, Jr. that he had hidden his own control of 3.3 million shares' worth of Global Datatel. False publicity, including claims made by company officials on cable news shows, then helped pump the now defunct Florida firm's share price from $7.25 to $16.84, Witz said. Among Witz's earlier stock promotions was a company now called Classica Group, whose former CEO is battling stock fraud charges brought last year by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, N.Y., and Osicom Technologies. Shares of Osicom soared from a few dollars to nearly $150 in the bubble market's enthusiasm for networking stocks. But Osicom never made good on its promises to become another Cisco Systems, and Osicom shares ultimately collapsed. Among those dismayed by Witz's cooperation could be his alleged co-conspirators at Global Datatel. At Monday's proceedings, assistant U.S. Attorney Mauro M. Wolfe gave only the initials of the four unindicted co-conspirators. But securities filings by the company make it clear that one of the four is most likely Joe T. Logan, Jr. -- a New Jersey stock promoter who called Barron's in a panic one morning in 1998, saying Russian mobsters were threatening him and accusing him of selling short a company run by Ivana Trump. The next year, two investing associates of Logan's were murdered gangland-style in a Colts Neck, N.J., mansion ("Dead Men Do Talk," Nov. 8, 1999). The murders remain unsolved. Last week, Barron's couldn't reach Logan or his attorney. Witz faces a maximum of five years in prison and $250,000 fine, for his guilty plea. But defense attorney Feld said that he expected prosecutors to recommend a reduced sentence, because of Witz's "significant cooperation."