Ex-SEC Lawyer Convicted in 'Pump and Dump' Scheme
A former Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer was taken into custody after a Virginia jury convicted him Thursday in a “pump and dump” stock scheme.
Prosecutors had claimed the lawyer, Phillip Offill Jr., conspired with 10 other men to tout the stocks of small companies and then sell them for a profit, according to the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.) and the Dallas Morning News. Sentencing is scheduled for April 16.
The group was accused of using faxes, e-mails and press releases to create interest in the stock. A pending SEC civil suit claims Offill used an exemption in the law for sophisticated investors to evade registration of the shares offered for sale, the Wall Street Journal says.
Offill had worked in the SEC’s Fort Worth, Texas, office before he became a partner at a Texas law firm.
Lanny Breuer, an assistant attorney general at the Justice Department, commented on the conviction. “It is a sad day when a former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission attorney uses what he learned in the government to later defraud the investing public,” he said.
