Tuesday, May 19, 2009 03:36:00 PM
By Carol S. Remond
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
David Hagen, founder and former president of GTX Global Corp. (GTXC), has been convicted of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Hagen, a convicted felon who served time in jail for his involvement in a direct mail scheme in the late 1980s, was featured in a Dow Jones Newswires "In the Money" column in December 2005 cautioning investors about GTX Global. He had fled to the Bahamas and was arrested upon his return to the U.S. in 2007.
Federal prosecutors for the western District of North Carolina accused Hagen of using a number of Web sites to drive up the price of GTX Global' stock price, selling stock at inflated prices and laundering his profits through bank accounts in the Bahamas, the Netherlands, Cyprus and the U.S.
As first reported by Dow Jones in April 2006 (actually, first reported here in this blog), criminal prosecutors first began looking into GTX Global as part of their investigation of two other penny stock companies called Concorde America Inc. and Absolute Health and Fitness Inc.
Hagen has been ordered by the jury to forfeit almost $28 million in proceeds from his illegal acts. He faces a maximum sentence of 45 years in prison. (Good luck, Keri "I had to fuck the fat fucker but I took all the money" Keenan already, by David's own admission, taken the money)
Parallel investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission in Florida and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Charlotte, N.C., led to several GTX Global-related arrests, including that of former U.S. attorney Sam Currin who pleaded guilty to money laundering and obstruction charges. Currin was sentenced to 70 months in jail in 2007.
NOW COMES THE FUN. Brecher's plea agreement likely to be unsealed soon. Bryan Kos' plea agreement to be unsealed as well. Look for more details here on the sentencing and plea agreement with David and for more indictments. Edward C Ovsenik, Ivan Ivanov, Annette Hagen, Curtis Garth and others are sure to be next.
