Ex-Argus CEO Held Liable for Penny Stock Pump-and-Dump Ring (1)

The former CEO of Argus Worldwide Corp. purposefully engaged in a pump-and-dump fraud ring with the pharmaceutical company’s penny stock, a federal judge said.

Michael Wexler “knowingly and intentionally participated in a pump-and-dump scheme to manipulate the market for Argus stock and defraud investors,” Judge Marilyn L. Huff wrote Monday while granting the SEC’s motion for partial summary judgment. The US District Court for the Southern District of California judge wrote the SEC successfully established scienter and that Wexler’s frequent invoking of the Fifth Amendment indicated his wrongdoing.

Wexler, the last remaining defendant in the US Securities and Exchange Commission ...