(Hedgeco.Net) The United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York has entered a final consent judgment against Mark Alan Lisser. The final judgement permanently enjoins Lisser from violating the antifraud provisions of the federal securities.
According to the SEC’s complaint, filed on December 1, 2020, Lisser, a New York resident, ran Knightsbridge Capital Partners, which operated at least two boiler rooms, through which Lisser raised approximately $2.1 million from at least 71 retail investors and misappropriated approximately $900,000 of that amount. The complaint alleged that, from approximately October 2018 to March 2019, Lisser, and boiler-room salespeople whom he directed, solicited investors by misrepresenting that the Knightsbridge-managed funds had purchased “pre-IPO” shares in three well-known companies directly from employees of the companies. As the complaint alleges, Knightsbridge did not own any shares at the time it solicited investors, did not buy shares from employees, and never owned enough shares to cover the sales it had made to investors. The complaint further alleges that Lisser and his salespeople falsely claimed to investors that Knightsbridge only charged investors a fee based on the profits after the pre-IPO companies went public, despite significantly marking up sales and charging commissions.
Lisser consented to the entry of a judgment which permanently enjoins him from violating Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and Rule 10b-5 thereunder; and orders him to pay disgorgement of $890,092.90 with prejudgment interest of $71,347.20. The total amount of disgorgement and prejudgment interest, $961,440.10, was deemed satisfied by an order of restitution entered against Lisser in the parallel criminal action United States v. Mark Alan Lisser, No. 21 Cr. 210 (E.D.N.Y.).
On September 15, 2022, Lisser consented to the entry of a Commission order barring him from association with any broker, dealer, investment adviser, municipal securities dealer, municipal advisor, transfer agent, or nationally recognized statistical rating organization; and from participating in any offering of a penny stock. On May 12, 2021, Lisser pled guilty to securities fraud in the criminal action, and on July 25, 2022, he was sentenced to 24 months in prison and ordered to pay restitution of $1,486,772.02.
