TAMPA — A St. Petersburg man was fined $507,513 and permanently barred from participating in the offering of a penny stock in a case involving a scheme to manipulate the price of Aureus, a penny stock company incorporated in Nevada, officials said Friday.
The judgment in the U.S. District Court in Tampa was entered against Gregory M. Bercowy by default Tuesday as a result of a complaint the Securities and Exchange Commission filed last month.
The SEC alleged that in August 2016, Bercowy, then associated with a state-registered investment adviser, sold shares of Fortune 500 companies, including Abbott and Apple, in a relative's brokerage account in order to buy more than 3 million shares of Aureus for more than $2.8 million.
While Bercowy was accumulating these shares of Aureus, he entered and later cancelled many orders to buy Aureus shares at prices higher than the stock's trading price. The SEC said the orders were intended to prop up or boost the share price for Aureus, which went from 52 cents a share on Aug. 4 to $1.62 on Aug. 15, 2016.
Bercowy said in recorded calls with a representative of a brokerage firm t hat he and others were trying to boost Aureus's stock price, according to the SEC.
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Contact Richard Danielson at rdanielson@tampabay.com or (813) 226-3403. Follow @Danielson_Times