A Virginia con artist gets a slap on the wrist for his shady stock dealings, causing outrage among victims of his pump-and-dump fraud. Anthony Jay Pignatello, a 53-year-old from Winchester, was sentenced to five months of probation, with only the initial six weeks to be served under house arrest, for his role in bilking investors through a phony securities racket.
U.S. Senior District Court Judge George A. OToole, Jr., showed little mercy in court in Boston when he handed down the sentence, which also includes a $41,547 forfeiture fee. The white-collar crook had earlier pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, as reported by the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the District of Massachusetts.
From 2012 to 2015, Pignatello teamed up with Christopher R. Esposito to secretly run Cannabiz Mobile, Inc. A Massachusetts-based company. They created backdated promissory notes and other phony documents to deceive investors and pocket profits from the sale of unethically acquired free-trading shares. Pignatello drafted the fake papers, which were signed by an executive "chairman, president, and CEO" of Cannabiz Mobile, who was actually following orders from the duo, particularly Esposito.
An orchestrated promotional campaign by Pignatello and Esposito in October 2014 caused Cannabiz Mobile's stock value and trading volume to soar. This allowed them to dump their illicitly obtained stock for a hefty profit. Pignatello offloaded over 800,000 of these shares.
On November 14, Esposito was sentenced to five years' probation, which includes a three-month stint in a halfway house and a forfeiture of $20,294 in connection with the Cannabiz Mobile fraud. Additionally, he was slapped with a $61,693.50 restitution bill for misleading investors with a false promise of taking another company, Code2Action, Inc., public. Acting United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy and Jodi Cohen of the FBI Boston Division announced the sentencing, while Assistant U.S. Attorney James R. Drabick handled the prosecution.
