Photo: Getty/Javier Ghersi Alleged David Sidoo associate Ronald Bauer has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud. A former B.C.
resident, who American officials alleged to be one of several leaders of a series of coordinated international pump-and-dump stock manipulation schemes, has pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit securities fraud. “For years, Ronald Bauer orchestrated a sprawling ‘pump-and-dump’ scheme involving the shares of numerous U.S.
-based issuers that preyed on ordinary, retail investors. While Bauer and his co-conspirators lived outside of the United States, they took advantage of the U.S.
markets to perpetrate their fraud and reaped millions upon millions in profits at the expense of the victims,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams on Nov.
4. Bauer had been charged with multiple counts of criminal securities fraud; the one guilty plea now brings the prospect of up to five years in prison. In addition to any prison sentence, a money judgment of $4,377,228.
74 was also entered against Bauer this week, said Williams. This was not Bauer's first run-in with securities violations. In 2006 , Bauer, then living in a luxury condo in Vancouver, was banned from directing companies for five years after settling with the U.
S. Securities and Exchange Commission on allegations of market manipulation. Three of Bauer’s alleged co-conspirators, including Canadian and British citizen Craig Auringer, remain under indictment for what the U.
S. Attorney�.
