U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSIONLitigation Release No. 21764 / December 6, 2010SEC v. Joshua Konigsberg, Louis Fischler, and MediSys Corp., Civil Action No. 10-cv-62364 (U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida)The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged penny stock promoters Joshua Konigsberg and Louis Fischler with securities fraud for their roles in various illicit schemes to manipulate the volume and price of four microcap stocks and illegally generate stock sales. The SEC also charged microcap company MediSys Corp., of which defendant Konigsberg is the president and chief executive officer, in connection with one of those schemes. The SEC worked closely with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida and the Federal Bureau of Investigation as the schemes were uncovered through FBI undercover operations conducted so that no investors suffered harm. The U.S. Attorney today announced criminal charges against the same two individuals facing SEC civil charges. The SEC's complaint, filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, alleges that Konigsberg and Fischler sought to manipulate the volume and price of four different microcap stocks and to generate stock sales through the payment of illegal kickbacks and bribes. Konigsberg and Fischler thought they were paying-off a corrupt pension fund employee, stockbroker, and middlemen. In reality, the pension fund employee and the stockbroker were fictitious persons, and the middlemen were an undercover FBI agent and a cooperating witness. According to the SEC's complaint, two of the schemes involved Konigsberg and Fischler paying kickbacks to a purported corrupt pension fund employee to buy restricted shares of stock in two microcap companies, MediSys Corp. and Casino Management of America, Inc., n/k/a Crosslands Energy Corp. The SEC's complaint alleges Konigsberg and Fischler understood they needed to disguise the kickbacks as payments to a phony consulting company that they knew would perform no actual work. According to the complaint, in two other schemes, Konigsberg and Fischler paid bribes to a purported corrupt stockbroker, who in return would use his clients' accounts to purchase the publicly traded stock of microcap issuers Pavillion Energy Resources, Inc. and Xtreme Motorsports International, Inc. The fraudulent buying would create the false impression in the market that these companies were developing active trading supporting a rising stock price. The SEC's complaint charges the defendants with violating Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, and Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The SEC is seeking permanent injunctions, financial penalties, and disgorgement plus prejudgment interest against all three defendants, and penny stock bars against Konigsberg and Fischler. Previously, on October 7, 2010, the SEC filed eight separate civil actions stemming from the FBI undercover operation, charging a dozen penny stock promoters and their companies for their roles in schemes to manipulate the volume and price of various microcap stocks and illegally generate stock sales. The same day, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida announced the filing of criminal charges against the same individual defendants stemming from the same conduct underlying the SEC's actions. For further information, see Litigation Release No. 21691 (October 7, 2010).
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