SEC Charges Fuel Cell Company and Officers With Defrauding Investors

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged a California-based penny stock company and four corporate officers with misleading investors about the research, development, and profitability of their purported business to manufacture power generation products such as fuel cells.

The SEC alleges that while raising approximately $7.9 million from investors in Terminus Energy Inc., the company and its officers claimed to have a viable prototype capable of being sold and earning revenue.  According to the SEC's complaint, Terminus did not have the fuel cell technology or the funding to match their claims, and the officers were instead converting substantial amounts of investor funds to their own use.

According to the SEC’s complaint, the company failed to disclose to investors that Terminus’s operations manager George Doumanis is a convicted felon who went to prison for securities fraud and was secretly acting as an officer of the company despite being barred from participating in penny stock offerings.  Emanuel Pantelakis served on the Terminus board of directors despite having been permanently barred by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.  Also charged in the SEC’s complaint are Terminus’s CEO Danny B. Pratte and its former president, director, and legal counsel Joseph L. Pittera. 

Terminus also allegedly used unregistered brokers to sell its securities and paid them more than twice as much in commissions than was disclosed to investors in offering documents.  Joseph Alborano is charged in the SEC’s complaint with soliciting and selling investments for which he received more than $1 million in commissions.

“As alleged in our complaint, these company insiders spent massive, undisclosed amounts of investor funds and left the company with no realistic chance of developing a fuel cell product,” said Eric I. Bustillo, Director of the SEC’s Miami Regional Office.

In a parallel action, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York today filed criminal charges against Pratte, Doumanis, and Pantelakis. 

The SEC’s complaint seeks disgorgement of ill-gotten gains plus interest and penalties as well as officer-and-director bars and penny stock bars.

The SEC’s investigation, which is continuing, is being conducted by Robert H. Murphy and Mark Dee in the Miami office.  The case is being supervised by Jessica M. Weissman, and the litigation is being led by Alejandro Soto.  The SEC appreciates the assistance of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.