A Minnesota A housing contractor was sentenced Thursday to a year and a day in federal prison for a brazen scheme to hijack dormant publicly traded shell companies, then pump up and sell their shares to unwitting buyers.
Contractor Mark Miller, 45, is the last of three men to be sentenced for a securities fraud scheme that passed indictment Filed June 2021 in U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota.
Miller’s lawyers asked Judge David Doty to give Miller a suspended sentence, citing his contracting business — the Breezy Point man runs it with his wife — and they have teenage children, which he called probation punishment. differences, one of whom was his accomplice.
“He’s a family man, he works hard,” said defense attorney Robert Lengeling for Miller, who has been awaiting sentencing since pleading guilty in October 2021.
“It’s unfair to throw him out of the community.”
Lengeling told Doty that when he recently learned that prosecutors wanted Miller to spend a year in prison for the penny stock scheme, “it felt like we were punched in the gut, frankly.” “It was a bit of a surprise.”
“My client came here today and was very scared of how he was going to conduct his business,” the lawyer said.
The one-year sentence proposed by prosecutors is significantly lower than the 30 to 37 months recommended by federal sentencing guidelines for conspiracy to commit securities fraud.
“Mr. Miller committed a serious crime,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Melinda Williams told the judge.
“I haven’t heard much remorse,” the prosecutor added.
In addition to serving the sentence, which Miller is expected to begin in August, Doty also sentenced Miller to two years in prison with supervised release after he completes his sentence.
By allowing Miller to serve one day in jail after his full year, the judge was effectively giving the defendant a break: Under federal rules, any defendant who has been sentenced to more than a year in prison is eligible for release after serving 85 percent of his sentence. term expires. Those in prison for a year or less are not eligible for early release.
Miller also faces demands for ‘more money’ Securities and Exchange CommissionLengeling told the judge that the company has a pending civil lawsuit against him related to the scheme.
As part of a plea deal with Mueller, prosecutors dropped multiple securities fraud and wire fraud charges he was originally charged with.
From 2017 to 2019, Miller and his co-defendants, Christopher James Rajkaran and Saeid Jaberian, used allegedly Bogus resignation letters written by managers have seized control of at least four companies.
These companies do not have any meaningful business and have not made required regulatory filings for some time.
The conspirators then used the SEC’s EDGAR public filing system and fake press releases to fraudulently inflate the hijacked companies’ stock prices by claiming new business opportunities, prosecutors said. Miller and Jabilian, along with unidentified individuals connected to Miller, became the nominal CEO and president of the target company, prosecutors said.
Defendants bought many shares for less than a penny each and then sold them on the over-the-counter market at many times their purchase price. The men made hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits from the scheme, prosecutors said.
At the time of his criminal charges, Miller was involved in a campaign to seize control of New World Gold Corp., a Florida penny-stock company.
The company was not identified as one of the seven shell company targets in either the criminal case or the civil suit The SEC filed a lawsuit against Miller.
Miller voluntarily dropped the lawsuit related to the acquisition of Shinsegae Gold shortly after CNBC reported that he was involved with the company.
Rajkaran, a resident of Queens, New York and Guyana, pleaded guilty in 2021. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison in January 2022. After his release, he was arrested last November and charged with aggravated misdemeanor DUI, according to a federal court filing in April.
Jabilian, also a Minnesota resident, was supposed to go to trial in his criminal case until he pleaded guilty last November. Doty sentenced him to two years of probation on May 10.
During Thursday’s sentencing, Miller’s attorneys told the judge, “My client is very concerned about how much we’re going to talk about this case,” referring to his criminal prosecution.
Lengeling noted that a CNBC reporter was monitoring the hearing via Zoom, and that “at least one media outlet is very interested in Mr. Miller’s case.”
“For some reason, it’s a pornographic type of case for this particular media guy, and I’m not sure why,” Lengeling said.
“Mr. Miller made a mistake and has made amends,” Lenglin said.
Attorneys concluded the hearing by asking Doty to seal the proceedings for ten years. Doty did not immediately rule on the request.