U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Litigation Release No. 25704 / May 3, 2023
Securities and Exchange Commission v. Lee Cohen, LLC, No. 1:23-cv-03309 (E.D.N.Y. filed May 2, 2023)
SEC Charges Call Room Operator With Fraud
The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Lee Cohen, a citizen of the United Kingdom, with violating the federal securities laws through his participation in a fraudulent scheme to manipulate trading in the stock of HD View 360 Inc., a now-defunct microcap company that was based in Miami, Florida.
The SEC’s complaint alleges that, beginning in 2017, HD View’s CEO and majority shareholder, Dennis Mancino, along with William Hirschy, orchestrated a fraudulent scheme that moved the price of HD View stock from zero to over $5 per share. According to the SEC’s complaint, Cohen joined the scheme in approximately July 2017, and operated a call room in the Philippines to generate buy orders for HD View stock from unsuspecting investors in the United States. The complaint further alleges that Cohen targeted senior citizens and other potential investors he believed were susceptible to cold call solicitations. Cohen’s sales pitch was that HD View had excellent growth prospects and that there was an active and rapidly rising market for its stock. In reality, HD View was a failing start-up company that was later dissolved and its stock delisted by the Commission for failure to file any financial statements after September 2017. Cohen duped investors into placing buy orders at artificially high prices that closely matched the target prices being set by Mancino and Hirschy. The orders were then routed to matching sell orders placed by brokerage accounts that Mancino or Hirschy controlled. The purpose of the scheme was to allow Mancino and Hirschy to sell their shares of HD View stock into an artificially inflated market. In turn, Cohen received commissions based on a percentage of the sales he generated.
The SEC’s complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of New York, charges Cohen with violating Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, Sections 9(a)(1), 9(a)(2), 10(b), and 15(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder. The SEC is seeking permanent injunctive relief, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains with prejudgment interest, and a penny stock bar.
The SEC’s investigation was conducted by Drew Dorman, with assistance from Robert Nesbitt and Kevin Gershfeld, under the supervision of Kevin Guerrero and Stacy Bogert. The litigation will be handled by Duane Thompson and supervised by James Connor. The SEC thanks the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York and the Federal Bureau of Investigation for their assistance in this matter.
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