{"id":3079,"date":"2014-07-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-07-29T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/silverlaw.lawblogger.net\/blog\/sec-charges-palm-beach-ceo-cecil-franklin-speight-in-3-million-fraud-scheme\/"},"modified":"2017-12-22T14:13:28","modified_gmt":"2017-12-22T19:13:28","slug":"sec-charges-palm-beach-ceo-cecil-franklin-speight-in-3-million-fraud-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/sec-charges-palm-beach-ceo-cecil-franklin-speight-in-3-million-fraud-scheme\/","title":{"rendered":"SEC Charges Palm Beach CEO, Cecil Franklin Speight, in $3 Million Fraud Scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (\u201cSEC\u201d) has filed a civil\u00a0lawsuit against a Palm Beach, Florida-based transfer agent and its owner for allegedly defrauding more than 70 investors out of more than $3 million by using \u201caggressive boiler room tactics\u201d to sell worthless investment securities.<\/p>\n<p>According to the SEC\u2019s\u00a0lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in New York, International Stock Transfer, Inc. (\u201cIST\u201d) and its sole owner, Cecil Franklin Speight, committed mail fraud and securities fraud by creating and issuing fake securities certificates to both domestic and foreign investors.\u00a0 While orchestrating a group of \u201ccold callers\u201d who promised investors high returns or discounted prices, Speight and IST actually provided the investors nothing more than counterfeit foreign bond certificates and stock certificates, including some for a publicly-traded microcap company with no connection to IST.\u00a0 Moreover, to cloak his scheme with an appearance of legitimacy, Speight and IST told investors to send their investment funds to two attorneys who would place the funds in their own bank accounts.\u00a0 From there, however, the funds did not go to any issuers; instead, the funds went to IST, where Speight used the money to pay personal expenses, including purchases at Mercedes-Benz, Nordstrom, and Groupon.\u00a0 In the course of this scheme, Speight allegedly stole more than $3.3 million, sporadically paying prior foreign bond fund investors with new investor money in classic Ponzi scheme fashion.<\/p>\n<p>Speight and IST have agreed to settle the SEC\u2019s charges, with Speight agreeing to be barred from serving as an officer or director of a public company, agreeing to be enjoined from participating in any penny stock offerings, and requiring Speight and IST to disgorge all of their ill-gotten gains.\u00a0 Monetary sanctions will be determined by the Court at a later date, though Speight reportedly faces at least $3.3 million in restitution and a fine equal to double the investors\u2019 losses.\u00a0 Additionally, Speight has pleaded guilty to a criminal charge in a parallel action brought against him by the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.\u00a0 He faces up to five years in prison.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/sec-charges-palm-beach-ceo-cecil-franklin-speight-in-3-million-fraud-scheme\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading SEC Charges Palm Beach CEO, Cecil Franklin Speight, in $3 Million Fraud Scheme\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (\u201cSEC\u201d) has filed a civil\u00a0lawsuit against a Palm Beach, Florida-based transfer agent and its owner for allegedly defrauding more than 70 investors out of more than $3 million by using \u201caggressive boiler room tactics\u201d to sell worthless investment securities. According to the SEC\u2019s\u00a0lawsuit, which was filed in federal court [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[595,583],"tags":[535,536,537,315],"class_list":["post-3079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-investment-fraud","category-sec-actions","tag-penny-stock","tag-sec-filings","tag-sec-fraud","tag-securities-fraud"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>SEC Charges Palm Beach CEO, Cecil Franklin Speight, in $3 Million Fraud Scheme &#8212; Securities Arbitration Lawyers Blog &#8212; July 29, 2014<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (\u201cSEC\u201d) has filed a civil\u00a0lawsuit against a Palm Beach, Florida-based transfer agent and its owner for &#8212; July 29, 2014\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/sec-charges-palm-beach-ceo-cecil-franklin-speight-in-3-million-fraud-scheme\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"SEC Charges Palm Beach CEO, Cecil Franklin Speight, in $3 Million Fraud Scheme &#8212; Securities Arbitration Lawyers Blog &#8212; July 29, 2014\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (\u201cSEC\u201d) has filed a civil\u00a0lawsuit against a Palm Beach, Florida-based transfer agent and its owner for &#8212; July 29, 2014\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Silver Law Group\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"SEC Charges Palm Beach CEO, Cecil Franklin Speight, in $3 Million Fraud Scheme &#8212; Securities Arbitration Lawyers Blog &#8212; July 29, 2014","description":"The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (\u201cSEC\u201d) has filed a civil\u00a0lawsuit against a Palm Beach, Florida-based transfer agent and its owner for &#8212; July 29, 2014","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/sec-charges-palm-beach-ceo-cecil-franklin-speight-in-3-million-fraud-scheme\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"SEC Charges Palm Beach CEO, Cecil Franklin Speight, in $3 Million Fraud Scheme &#8212; Securities Arbitration Lawyers Blog &#8212; July 29, 2014","twitter_description":"The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (\u201cSEC\u201d) has filed a civil\u00a0lawsuit against a Palm Beach, Florida-based transfer agent and its owner for &#8212; July 29, 2014","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Silver Law Group","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/sec-charges-palm-beach-ceo-cecil-franklin-speight-in-3-million-fraud-scheme\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/sec-charges-palm-beach-ceo-cecil-franklin-speight-in-3-million-fraud-scheme\/"},"author":{"name":"Silver Law Group","@id":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/de64d999508b1ad10d608a99f0d2e752"},"headline":"SEC Charges Palm Beach CEO, Cecil Franklin Speight, in $3 Million Fraud Scheme","datePublished":"2014-07-29T04:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2017-12-22T19:13:28+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/sec-charges-palm-beach-ceo-cecil-franklin-speight-in-3-million-fraud-scheme\/"},"wordCount":476,"keywords":["penny stock","sec filings","sec fraud","securities fraud"],"articleSection":["Investment Fraud","SEC Actions"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/sec-charges-palm-beach-ceo-cecil-franklin-speight-in-3-million-fraud-scheme\/","url":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/sec-charges-palm-beach-ceo-cecil-franklin-speight-in-3-million-fraud-scheme\/","name":"SEC Charges Palm Beach CEO, Cecil Franklin Speight, in $3 Million Fraud Scheme &#8212; Securities Arbitration Lawyers Blog &#8212; July 29, 2014","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-07-29T04:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2017-12-22T19:13:28+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/de64d999508b1ad10d608a99f0d2e752"},"description":"The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (\u201cSEC\u201d) has filed a civil\u00a0lawsuit against a Palm Beach, Florida-based transfer agent and its owner for &#8212; July 29, 2014","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/sec-charges-palm-beach-ceo-cecil-franklin-speight-in-3-million-fraud-scheme\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/sec-charges-palm-beach-ceo-cecil-franklin-speight-in-3-million-fraud-scheme\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/sec-charges-palm-beach-ceo-cecil-franklin-speight-in-3-million-fraud-scheme\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"SEC Charges Palm Beach CEO, Cecil Franklin Speight, in $3 Million Fraud Scheme"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/","name":"Securities Arbitration Lawyers Blog","description":"Published by Securities Arbitration Lawyers \u2014 Silver Law Group","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/de64d999508b1ad10d608a99f0d2e752","name":"Silver Law Group","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9eb0a691642ae95c68ee1c45b5f50f35bae76a41f3d9f861c7bfd40c87661746?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9eb0a691642ae95c68ee1c45b5f50f35bae76a41f3d9f861c7bfd40c87661746?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9eb0a691642ae95c68ee1c45b5f50f35bae76a41f3d9f861c7bfd40c87661746?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Silver Law Group"}}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3079"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5556,"href":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3079\/revisions\/5556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.silverlaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}