{"id":80344,"date":"2022-01-03T00:18:35","date_gmt":"2022-01-03T05:18:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/?p=80344"},"modified":"2022-01-03T00:14:54","modified_gmt":"2022-01-03T05:14:54","slug":"financial-company-and-its-president-charged-with-engaging-in-fraudulent-schemes-to-boost-stock-price","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/01\/2022\/financial-company-and-its-president-charged-with-engaging-in-fraudulent-schemes-to-boost-stock-price.html","title":{"rendered":"Financial Company and Its President Charged with Engaging in Fraudulent Schemes to Boost Stock Price"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>(HedgeCo.Net)  The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged <strong>Medallion Financial Corp.<\/strong>, a Delaware company headquartered in New York, NY, and its President and Chief Operating Officer, Andrew Murstein of New York, NY, with illegally engaging in two schemes in an effort to reverse the company\u2019s plummeting stock price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the SEC\u2019s complaint, Medallion\u2019s core business was making loans backed by taxicab medallions to taxicab owners and operators. However, the popularity of ride-sharing companies like Uber and Lyft led to a decline in the value of taxicab medallions and of Medallion\u2019s stock price. Murstein and Medallion allegedly directed two separate schemes to inflate the company\u2019s stock price, in part with the help of California-based media strategy company, Ichabod\u2019s Cranium, Inc., and its owner, Lawrence Meyers, both of whom were also charged by the SEC with fraud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The complaint, filed in federal district court in Manhattan, alleges that Murstein and Medallion engaged in illegal touting by paying Ichabod\u2019s Cranium and others to place positive stories about the company on various websites, including Huffington Post, Seeking Alpha, and TheStreet.com. With Murstein\u2019s knowledge, Meyers and others created fake identities so their opinion pieces would appear credible to potential investors. The complaint further alleges that Medallion and Murstein fraudulently increased the carrying value of Medallion Bank (the Bank), a wholly owned subsidiary of Medallion, to offset losses relating to the taxicab medallion loans. The complaint alleges that when the existing valuation firm refused to cave to Murstein\u2019s pressure to increase the Bank\u2019s valuation, Murstein fired the firm and hired a new firm to provide an inflated valuation of the Bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cMurstein allegedly paid for more than 50 articles and hundreds of positive comments, which were really paid advertisements placed across the web in an effort to deceive investors about the value of Medallion\u2019s stock,\u201d&nbsp;said Richard Best, Director of the New York Regional Office. \u201cCompanies also cannot shop for higher valuations when there is no evidence to support them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The SEC\u2019s complaint charges Murstein and Medallion with violating the antifraud, books and records, internal controls, and anti-touting provisions of the federal securities laws. Murstein is also charged with making false statements to Medallion\u2019s auditor. The complaint also charges Ichabod\u2019s Cranium and Meyers with touting and fraud. The SEC seeks permanent injunctions, disgorgement plus prejudgment interest, and civil penalties. In addition, the SEC seeks an officer-and-director bar against Murstein.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Medallion Financial Corp., a Delaware company headquartered in New York, NY, and its President and Chief Operating Officer, Andrew Murstein of New York, NY, with illegally engaging in two schemes in an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,3,16048],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80344","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\/80344","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=80344"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80345,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80344\/revisions\/80345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}