For people who have been fleeced by Mr. Metter over the years, this day has been a long time coming.
Greenwich con man Micheal Metter is a mini-Madoff,” who started selling toxic stocks penny stocks at a brokerage firm he was president of in the mid-1990s.
The criminal charges are just the latest and most serious of Mr. Metter's legal problems. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil charges last week, and the New York Mets, Giants and Madison Square Garden are just a few of the parties that have sued his company for failing to pay its advertising bills.
Last month the con man Micheal Metter attempted to intimidate the New York Post with a law suit, because its reporter, Kaja Whitehouse, wrote a series of articles questioning the Greenwich resident's sponge sales.
Before getting into the sponge business, Greenwich con man Michael Metter worked on Wall Street for at least 14 years.
During that time this con man developed a lengthy track record for defrauding customers.
Along the way, Micael Metter bought a large house on a 2-acre lot on a quiet lane in Greenwich, Conn., which he used last week to secure his $2 million bail, and a yacht called The Phoenix.
Mr. Metter was fired from Prudential-Bache Securities in 1989 for violating procedures concerning client orders.
In the mid-'90s, he was president of a place called J.J. Morgan & Co., which changed its named to First Cambridge Securities after J.P. Morgan sued. The firm cold-called gullible investors with shots at initial public offerings in small technology companies. these investors would send even more money after the stocks initially rose. The stocks would collapse after Micheal Metter would tender millions of his shares at a huge profit,
If an investor wanted out before the collapse, First Cambridge wouldn't let them leave.
Duane Townsend, a 76-year-old oncologist in Utah who lost $457,000 from buying toxic stocks at a brokerage Mr. Townsend, who filed a fraud claim in 1998 and was awarded the $457,000 by an arbitrator.
But Greenwich con man Micheal Metter told the elderly Mr. Towssend that he had no intention of paying the award.
So Mr. Townsend filed another lawsuit in federal court in 2000.
A judge confirmed the arbitration award.
Still, Greenwich con man Micheal Metter wouldn't pay, even though his compensation that year was $242,000,
Mr. Townsend ultimately settled for $30,000, which Mr. Metter paid by refinancing the mortgage held in his spouse's name on his Greenwich home.
Mr. Townsend's case was just one of several to hit Mr. Metter at about the same time.
An arbitrator awarded another cheated First Cambridge client $108,000 and granted $250,000 to another defrauded customer at Greenwich con man Micheal Metter's next firm, Madison Capital Markets.
In April 2001, a month after a fourth angry investor sought $550,000 in damages from the Greenwich con man.
Mr. Metter filed for bankruptcy. In his petition, he listed $30,000 in assets and $5.1 million in liabilities, including a lease for a Bentley.
All the investor complaints drove the Greenwich con away from Wall Street to a new career—as a sponge salesman. With Mr. Moskowitz, he launched Spongetech around 2002.
Soon, however, Mr. Metter was back with a new venture.
After five years of dormancy, he started hyping Spongetech's stock in 2007 by issuing a press release saying a South African company agreed to buy 1.5 million car wash sponges, according to the government's complaint.
Subsequently, Spongetech proclaimed big sales to clients in South America and Dubai and introduced a SpongeBob SquarePants sponge.
The company even hired a stock promoter in Brooklyn who paid vendors with gift cards he'd purchased, the government says, and Mr. Moskowitz allegedly invented a fake lawyer named David Bomart who drafted “opinions” approving their actions.
The hype worked. Spongetech's stock, which traded for pennies, quintupled in value, and Mr. Metter and Mr. Moskowitz sold 2.5 billion shares, the government says, using a portion of their millions in profits to buy ads with the Yankees and other teams to further raise their company's profile.
At Spongetech's peak last summer, Mr. Metter was at his hard-selling best, touting the wonders of its product at an investor conference.
“We are really a technology company—even though when you look at it, you believe it to be a sponge,” the Greenwich con man declared
By last September, Spongetech claimed it had $70 million in orders.
Not true, the government says. Prosecutors allege that Mr. Metter and his partner fabricated 99% of the company's revenue, and when investigators started sniffing around, the men generated fake sales documents and created phony offices for nonexistent clients. When a representative from the company's primary supplier got suspicious, Mr. Metter told him to butt out.
“Mind your own business,” Mr. Metter snapped, according to prosecutors. “If you know what's good for you, you'll keep your mouth shut.”
But There Is More To The Story.....
It Looks Like Sponge Tech Was Just The First Con To Be Releases On The Investment Public
Greenwich Con Man Micheal Metter had another dog of a stock in the wings
Vanity Events Holdings
This pump and dump of Micheal Metter's has not yet been launched as the company is in its infancy, but the trading in the stock originated in April 2009.
And based on their financials and no revenues they have a long way to go.
But in September 2009, just 3 months later, Vanity Events Holdings has found financing that they then redirect towards getFugu another of Micheal Metter's stable of toxic stocks.
ITEM 1.01 | ENTRY INTO A MATERIAL DEFINITIVE AGREEMENT |
On September 1, 2009, Vanity Events Holding, Inc. (the “Company”) closed a private placement of 4,000,000 shares of common stock (the “Securities”) to 11 accredited investors (the “Investors”) for aggregate gross proceeds of $1,000,000 pursuant to a Securities Purchase Agreement.
The Company claims an exemption from the registration requirements of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, for the private placement of the above-referenced Securities pursuant to Section 4(2) of the Act and/or Regulation D promulgated thereunder since, among other things, the transaction did not involve a public offering, the investors were accredited investors, the investors had access to information about us and their investment, the investors took the securities for investment and not resale, and we took appropriate measures to restrict the transfer of the securities.
The fact that $1 million was received on September 1, 2009 as financing into Vanity Events (for stock shares priced at $0.25 in a market trading at $2.00+ or an 88% discount) so simply re-direct into GetFugu is a clear red flag towards laundering.
Why wouldn’t the investor in Vanity Events not simply invest directly into GetFugu?
Vanity Events Holding, Inc. Announces $1 Million Strategic Investment in Getfugu, Inc.
Press Release
Source: Vanity Events Holding, Inc.
On Friday September 4, 2009, 9:30 am EDT
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Vanity Events Holding, Inc. (“Vanity”) (OTCBB: VAEV - News), is pleased to announced that the Company has agreed to a strategic investment of $1 million into Getfugu, Inc. (“Getfugu”), a technology company that focuses on developing mobile search tools. Getfugu’s already proven, proprietary technology, is capable of recognizing specific company logos embedded in television images in real time. Making use of the 3 billion mobile phones deployed around the world, advertisers can, for the first time, direct interested users to websites designed specifically for a targeted demographic group. This technology is unique to Getfugu because it covers the entire image on a television and performs the search in real time, as images on the television move.
Of significance is Greenwich con man Micheal Metter's fixation with share distributions, Vanity Events Holdings issued a Stock Dividend (to himself) in September 2008 despite no the fact that there was no business.
Effective September 26, 2008, the Board of Directors of the Vanity Events Holding, Inc. (the “Company”) declared a stock dividend of 1.71178 shares of common stock for every 1 share of common stock held by shareholders of record at the close of business on September 26, 2008.