Peter Coker Sr. and his wife, Susan Coker, appear in U.S. District Court in Newark, New Jersey, on March 15, 2023.
and Mn | CNBC
On January 11, 2023, police issued a search warrant to Peter Coker Jr. (left) to search his villa on the resort island of Phuket in southern Thailand.
Royal Thai Police Crime Division | Associated Press
A third defendant, James Patten, pleaded guilty in December to identical charges of securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud in connection with the company. hometown international and another company.
Both the Cox family and Patten admitted they participated in a scheme to artificially inflate the stock price of Hometown, whose only real business assets were Your Hometown Deli in Paulsboro and a shell company then known as E-Waste. The company’s stock.
Hometown’s stock price rose more than 900% as a result of the plan. E-waste prices have increased by nearly 20,000%.
The scam, which lasted from 2014 to September 2022, involved coordinated trades of the two companies’ stocks to create the false impression that there was demand for their shares, which were traded on the over-the-counter market.
The defendants obtained control of the company’s management and stock during the course of the conspiracy with the intent of using it as a vehicle for a reverse merger with a private company. Both companies eventually merged with private companies through such transactions.
Coker Sr., 82, of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, has been free on bail since his arrest in September 2022.
Kirk Jr., 56, a former Hong Kong resident, has been held without bail since his extradition from Thailand in March 2023.
The defendant faces up to 20 years in prison.
Patten previously pleaded guilty in 2010 to mail fraud in New Jersey federal court in connection with sending false financial statements to a client to cover up bad investments he made with her money. He was sentenced to 27 months in prison in that case.
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