LAWFUEL – The Lawyer Newswire – MICHAEL J. GARCIA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that securities attorney ULYSSES THOMAS WARE, a/k/a “Thomas Ware,” was sentenced today to 97 months in prison on securities fraud and conspiracy charges arising from a scheme to defraud investors in two penny stocks. WARE was convicted of the charges on April 30, 2007, following a two-week jury trial. According to the evidence at trial:
WARE and his co-conspirators, through WARE’s law firm
— Rosenfeld, Goldman & Ware, Inc. — engaged in a scheme to
artificially inflate the market price of and market demand for
two penny stocks, Service Systems International, Ltd. (ticker
symbol SVSY) and Investment Technology Inc. (ticker symbol INZS),
from December 2001 through April 2002.
Specifically, in order to
fraudulently induce investors to purchase SVSY and INZS stock,
WARE caused the dissemination throughout the United States of
false and misleading press releases that: (a) provided fraudulent
information concerning the business and plans of SVSY and INZS;
(b) gave baseless stock price predictions; (c) failed to disclose
the compensation WARE was receiving for promoting the stocks; and
(d) contained misrepresentations and omissions concerning the
entities issuing the press releases.
After artificially pumping up the price and volume of
the Service Systems and Investment Technology stocks through use
of these fraudulent press releases, WARE then sold the stock at a
substantial profit from January 2002 through April 2002. WARE
netted over $225,000 over the course of just four months through
his scheme.
Additionally, WARE obtained a false affidavit, from one
of his employees, which he submitted to the Securities and
Exchange Commission (“SEC”) in order to obstruct its
investigation into related matters.
In imposing sentence, United States District Judge
WILLIAM H. PAULEY III stated that the defendant “orchestrated an
elaborate pump-and-dump scheme that undermined the integrity of
the financial markets,” and told WARE that the “trial revealed
you are really a predator on innocent investors,” and “[you have]
disgraced the profession to which you’ve been admitted to
practice. Unfortunately, you used this practice to commit this
wide-ranging fraud.”
In addition to the prison sentence, Judge PAULEY
ordered WARE to forfeit the proceeds of his fraud in the amount
of $228,388 and imposed a fine of $25,000.
WARE, 47, resides in Atlanta, Georgia.
Mr. GARCIA praised the work of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation in the investigation of this case and also
expressed his gratitude to the SEC for its assistance in this
matter.
Assistant United States Attorney STEVEN D. FELDMAN is
in charge of the prosecution.
07-261 ###
