To: StockDung who wrote (548 ) 5/20/2005 3:08:36 PM From: Arcane Lore Respond to of 559 From today's SEC Digest: COMMISSION DECLARES DECISION AS TO RICHARD KERN AND CHARLES WILKINS FINAL The decision of an administrative law judge barring Richard S. Kern and Charles Wilkins from participating in an offering of any penny stock has become final. The law judge found that on Oct. 2, 2003, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York permanently enjoined Kerns and Wilkins from violating Sections 5(a) and 5(c)of the Securities Act of 1933 and ordered them, jointly and severally, to pay disgorgement and prejudgment interest of $7,765,173. The court also ordered Kern to pay a civil penalty of $400,000 and Wilkins to pay a civil penalty of $300,000. The law judge also found that on June 28, 2004, the district court permanently enjoined Kern and Wilkins from violation Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act of 1934 and Exchange Act Rule 10b-5. From April 1998 through January 1999, Kern and Wilkins successfully listed the securities of three shell corporations on the NASD’s OTC Bulletin Board in an attempt to merge the shell corporations with other corporations. The respondents distributed the corporations’ stock to family and friends, who held the securities for two years before the securities were publicly listed, and then respondents re-gathered the stock back from them. The respondents also effected public sales of the shell corporations’ securities to entities owned or controlled by Respondents’ co-defendant, Peter C. Lybrand, without registering their transactions with the Commission and aided and abetted a market manipulation by Lybrand. (Rel. 34-51712; File No. 3-11537) sec.gov