(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged three individuals who defrauded investors in a company that falsely claimed to be developing a caffeinated chocolate snack and nearing an acquisition by Monster Energy or Coca-Cola Co.<\/p>\n
The SEC\u2019s complaint alleges that Lisa Bershan and her husband, Barry Schwartz, together with business associate Joel Margulies, falsely promised investors that after being acquired, Starship Snack Corp. investors would get a one-to-one exchange of Starship shares for Monster or Coca-Cola shares. According to the SEC\u2019s complaint, Bershan and Margulies also falsely claimed that investors had \u201cno down-side risk\u201d and Bershan personally guaranteed that investors could get their investment back with 5 percent interest if the shares failed to appreciate over a year.<\/p>\n
According to the SEC\u2019s complaint, Starship had no agreement with Monster Energy or Coca-Cola , and Bershan and Schwartz used investor funds as their own personal piggy bank, spending them to rent and decorate a New York City apartment, and on travel, meals, and other personal expenses. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs alleged in our complaint, investors trusted Bershan, Schwartz, and Margulies, but that trust was misplaced,\u201d said Lara S. Mehraban, Associate Regional Director of the SEC\u2019s New York Regional Office. \u201cThe defendants constantly reassured their investors with lies, all the while taking their money and spending it on themselves.\u201d <\/p>\n
In a parallel action, the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the Southern District of New York today announced criminal charges against the three defendants.<\/p>\n
The SEC\u2019s complaint, filed in federal court in Manhattan, charges Bershan, Margulies, and Schwartz with violating antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws and a related SEC antifraud rule. The SEC is seeking to have the defendants return their allegedly ill-gotten gains plus interest, pay penalties, and be subject to permanent injunctions. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged three individuals who defrauded investors in a company that falsely claimed to be developing a caffeinated chocolate snack and nearing an acquisition by Monster Energy or Coca-Cola Co. The SEC\u2019s complaint alleges […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,3,16048],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hedgeco-networks-press-releases","category-hedgeco-news","category-hedgecovest-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60447"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60449,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60447\/revisions\/60449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}