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Stock Promoter Pleads Guilty to Bribery Scheme
LEV L. DASSIN, the Acting United States Attorney for
the Southern District of New York, announced that JONATHAN
CURSHEN, a stock promoter based in San Jose, Costa Rica, pleaded
guilty today to participating in a scheme to provide secret
bribes to stock brokers in order to induce the brokers to
purchase a particular stock on behalf of their clients. CURSHEN
pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court before Chief United
States Magistrate Judge HENRY B. PITMAN.
According to the one-count Information to which CURSHEN
pleaded guilty and statements made during CURSHEN's guilty plea
proceeding:
CURSHEN and a co-conspirator sought to defraud
investors in Industrial Biotechnology Corporation common stock by
engaging a middleman to recruit corrupt stockbrokers who, in
return for undisclosed 25% commissions, would sell IBC stock that
CURSHEN and his co-conspirator controlled to United States
clients of their brokerage firms. However, the "middleman" was
an undercover agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
("FBI"). During the course of the investigation, the undercover
middleman arranged for purported "customers" to purchase a total
of approximately $76,000 of IBC stock controlled by CURSHEN and
his associate, in return for which CURSHEN wired approximately
$19,000, or 25 percent of the value of the IBC stock, to the
undercover as commission.
CURSHEN, 44, of Sarasota, Florida, pleaded guilty to
one count of participating in a conspiracy to commit securities
fraud and commercial bribery. The charge carries a maximum
penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. CURSHEN is
scheduled to be sentenced by United States District Judge LEONARD
B. SAND on September 23, 2009, at 4:30 p.m.
Mr. DASSIN praised the investigative work of the FBI
and praised the Securities and Exchange Commission for its
assistance in this case.
Assistant United States Attorney ALEX WILLSCHER is in
charge of the prosecution.
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