July 17, 2014

The SEC charged the CEO and president of a supposed merchant banking firm, braxas “A.J.” Discala and Marc E. Wexler, with teaming up with brokers and the CEO of the medical education company CodeSmart, Ira Shapiro, to inflate the price of the company’s stock and profit at the expense of the brokers’ customers.  According to the SEC, they acquired 3 million restricted shares of CodeSmart stock following its reverse merger into a public shell company in May 2013, and improperly flooded the market with the shares as though they were unrestricted.  CodeSmart’s stock price crashed from a peak of nearly $7 per share to where it is currently trading at below 10 cents.  SEC

Tagged in: Market Manipulation and Trading Violations, Misrepresentations, Securities Fraud,