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Emin Cohen, 35, of Coram, a cold-caller and accountant executive at My Street Research in Melville, was sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to pay $86,168 in forfeiture after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud in connection with a multi-defendant, $147 million scheme to defraud investors in publicly traded companies.
Between January 2014 and July 2017, Cohen and 15 others participated in a “pump and dump” stock fraud scheme that defrauded investors in publicly traded companies,” U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue said. As part of the scheme, Cohen and his co-conspirators “artificially inflated the price and trading volume of stock of the manipulated companies, and made material misrepresentations and omissions in their communications with the victim investors, concerning the advisability of purchasing the stock and its potential profitability.”
According to Donoghue, the people facing charges controlled much of the stock of the manipulated companies, and “profited handsomely, while the victim investors lost millions of dollars when the price stock plummeted.
“Taped to the wall of the boiler room was a sign that read, ‘WE’LL POUND THE PHONE AND WITH A LITTLE BIT OF LUCK, WE’LL MAKE A TON OF MONEY AND WON’T GIVE A F—,’ Donoghue noted. “Ten of Cohen’s co-defendants have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing. Five other co-defendants are scheduled for trial.”
“Cohen played key roles in the boiler room, luring the victims, many of them elderly and vulnerable, into the fraudulent scheme with lies and subjecting them to high-pressure tactics to seal the deals,” Donoghue said. “With today’s sentence, Cohen has been held accountable for taking advantage of victims of his telemarketing con job, designed solely to enrich himself and his co-conspirators.”
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