Trader who touted ForceField stock on Fox Business gets 15 months

ForceField Energy

09/08/2017 23:08

By Brendan Pierson 
    Aug 9 (Reuters) - A Dallas-based trader was sentenced to 15 
months in prison on Wednesday after pleading guilty to taking 
part in a scheme to pump up the stock price of LED lighting 
company ForceField Energy Inc, which U.S. prosecutors have said 
caused investor losses of $131 million. 
    Herschel Knippa, 47, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge 
Brian Cogan in Brooklyn federal court, prosecutors announced. He 
was also ordered to pay $3.57 million in restitution. 
    "Mr. Knippa accepts responsibility and looks forward to 
moving on from this unfortunate chapter in his otherwise 
unblemished life," Knippa's attorney, Alex Spiro, said in an 
email. 
    Prosecutors said that in 2014 and 2015, Knippa, owner of 
Kenai Capital Management LLC in Dallas, talked up now-worthless 
ForceField stock on the Fox Business cable television network 
and elsewhere while being paid kickbacks from an executive at 
the company to do so. 
    They said that during one July 2014 appearance on Fox 
Business's "Varney & Co," Knippa lied to host Stuart Varney when 
asked whether he owned ForceField stock by responding: "You bet 
I do. I put my money where my mouth is." 
    Knippa was among nine people charged in May 2016 with 
scheming to pump up ForceField shares. Authorities said the 
defendants manipulated the stock from December 2009 to April 
2015 by secretly trading it in undisclosed accounts, inflating 
trading volume to create a false sense of demand and concealing 
kickbacks to stock promoters and brokers to tout it. 
    In addition to Knippa, four other defendants - an investor 
relations professional and three brokers - have been sentenced, 
receiving prison terms ranging from three months to three years. 
    Of the remaining four defendants awaiting sentencing, three 
have pleaded guilty and one was convicted after a trial. 
    The charges followed the April 2015 arrest of Richard St. 
Julien, a Canadian citizen who was executive chairman of 
ForceField, previously called SunSi Energies Inc.  
    St. Julien was charged separately and has cooperated with 
prosecutors, court records show. He has not been sentenced. 
 
 (Reporting by Brendan Pierson in New York, editing by G Crosse) 
 ((Brendan.Pierson@thomsonreuters.com; +1-646-223-6017)) 
 
Keywords: FORCEFIELD FRAUD/