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  washingtonpost.com
Teen Accused Of Web Fraud Faces More SEC Charges


Dick Kelsey
Newsbytes
Tuesday, April 30, 2002; 10:17 AM



A California teenager already accused of running a $1 million Internet scam 
also ran an online stock manipulation scheme that netted tens of thousands of 
dollars, the Securities and Exchange Commission says.

Cole A. Bartiromo, 17, "conducted an Internet pump-and-dump scheme that 
manipulated the stock price of fifteen publicly traded companies" from May 14 
to July 5 of last year, the SEC alleged in an amended complaint filed Monday.

Bartiromo bought large blocks of stock, then made bogus claims in more than 
6,000 postings on Internet message boards to boost the stocks' share prices 
before selling everything he had purchased. He profited more than $91,000 in 
less than two months, the SEC said.

The agency seeks return of the money and civil penalties.

In January, the SEC accused Bartiromo - a high school student who was living at 
his parents' Mission Viejo home at the time - of bilking more than 1,000 
investors out of $1 million in an online scam.

The SEC said investigators in December uncovered Bartiromo's Invest Better 2001 
and identified it as a fraudulent operation that promoted itself on its own Web 
site and on MSN message boards.

Investors handed over money, apparently falling for Invest Better 2001's pitch 
that its betting-pool investments were "guaranteed" and "risk-free," and would 
return 125 percent to 2,500 percent.

Last December Bartiromo transferred $900,000 of his take to an account he 
controlled at a Costa Rican casino, which he has since agreed to return as part 
of a settlement to that case.

Reported by Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com .



© 2002 Newsbytes.com




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