Peter Coker Sr. in front of the U.S. District Court in Newark, New Jersey on March 15, 2023.
Dan Mangan | CNBC
Peter Coker Jr. (left) is served a search warrant by police at his villa on the resort island of Phuket in southern Thailand on January 11, 2023.
Royal Thai Police Crime Suppression Division | AP
A third defendant, James Patten, pleaded guilty in December 2023 to the same charges of securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud in connection with a previously known company. Hometown International And another company.
Lawyers for the Cokers reached an agreement with federal prosecutors in which neither side would argue over the severity of the prison term during the men’s sentencing. The agreement does not bind the judge to impose a sentence within that range.
In the case of Coker Sr., 82, the sentence could range from zero to two years in prison. For my 56-year-old son, that range is 30 to 50 months.
The Cokers and the Pattens each admitted their roles in the scheme to artificially inflate Hometown’s stock price. Hometown’s only real business assets were Your Hometown Deli in Paulsboro and stock in a shell company then known as E-Waste.
As a result of this plan, Hometown’s stock price increased by more than 900%. The price of e-waste has increased by nearly 20,000%.
The scam, which lasted from 2014 to September 2022, involved coordinated trading of the stocks of both companies, creating the false impression that there was demand for the stocks of both companies trading on the OTC marketplace.
During the conspiracy, the defendants acquired control of the management and stock of a company with the intent of using it as a vehicle for a reverse merger with a privately held company. These deals with private companies ultimately led to the two companies merging.
Coker Sr., of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, has been released without bail since his arrest in September 2022. He is scheduled to be sentenced on May 13th.
Old Man Coker’s attorney, Zach Intrater, declined to comment on Coker’s guilty plea.
Coker Jr., a former Hong Kong resident, has been held in New Jersey’s Essex County Jail without bail since his extradition from Thailand in March 2023. He is scheduled to be sentenced on April 2nd.
John Azzarello, Coker Jr.’s attorney, told CNBC that “Mr. Coker Jr. has acknowledged that he held large amounts of stock in both companies in his name.” [firms] He admitted that he controlled things that were not in his name and that he participated in a conspiracy to artificially inflate stock prices. ”
Azzarello said Coker Jr. was incarcerated in New Jersey under “really, really harsh conditions” and spent the previous two months in a Thai prison under “horrible conditions” after his arrest in Thailand. He said that it has been done.
“He is very anxious to serve his sentence, put this behind him and return to Asia, where he has built his career and life since graduating from college,” Azzarello said. “We are hopeful that we will be able to convince the court that an appropriate sentence is the final part of the agreement.”
In 2010, Ms. Patten pleaded guilty in federal court in New Jersey to mail fraud charges related to sending false financial statements to clients to conceal fraudulent investments using her money. He was sentenced to 27 months in prison for this incident.
