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RAPAPORT... U.S. District Judge Larry R. Hicks sentenced Marco Glisson of Miami, Florida to four years in prison for conspiring to offer and sell unregistered securities of CMKM Diamonds Inc., as well as for tax evasion, and the court denied Glisson's request for a self-surrender to prison. Glisson pleaded guilty to the charges on January 15 and, according to the U.S. Attorney for Nevada, reportedly collected $3 million from selling CMKM shares after they'd been revoked by the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC). Glisson was not a registered broker or dealer of securities, but he conspired with others to purchase and sell CMKM penny stock beginning in about December 2005 using a transfer agent/company known as Global Stock Transfer LLC to cancel CMKM's stock certificates that were held in the names of other co-conspirators and reissue in his name. Glisson then marketed the stock in Internet chat rooms under the name "Deli dog" or Deli," and also used the mail and other resources to offer and sell, according to the indictment. As Glisson sold the shares of CMKM stock, the stock transfer company would cancel and reissue them to the purchasers, allowing him to sell billions of shares between December 2005 and May 2006. Additionally, Glisson failed to pay federal income taxes for 2006 and 2007, and instead took care in hiding the income, such as placing money in bank accounts under the name of his wife and others and using cash, according to the court. Ten co-conspirators were also charged in a separate case pending in the District Court for the District of Nevada. Five are pending trial, one plead guilty and is awaiting sentencing, one is a fugitive, one is awaiting extradition and the charges against another were dismissed, according to the prosecutor. The SEC defined the CMKM Diamonds saga the largest penny stock fraud in history and collected more than 300,000 pages of evidence against defendants. U.S. prosecutors filed indictments in 2009 against CMKM's former CEO, Urban Casavant -- who has, since, allegedly passed away -- along with John Edwards, James Kinney, Helen Bagley, attorney Brian Dvorak and Casavant's secretary Ginger Gutierrez. It was alleged that 700 billion shares of CMKM (and CMKX) shares were sold to 50,000 unsuspecting shareholders for an estimated $250 million. Casavant also faced income tax evasion for failing to report income and concealing income from the stock and securities of CMKM Diamonds. The case is being investigated by the FBI and IRS Criminal Investigation, and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kathryn Newman and Andrew Duncan. The efforts to pursue these fraud cases are part of President Obama's Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force (FFETF), which was created in November 2009, and is the broadest coalition of law enforcement, investigatory and regulatory agencies ever assembled to combat fraud.
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