DALLAS (CN) - ConnectAJet sold 30 million shares through "an expensive marketing campaign in which it boldly proclaimed to have revolutionized the air travel industry through a real-time, online booking system for private jet travel," but "that system was a figment of the imagination" of the company's CEO Martin T. Cantu and stock promoter Timothy Page, the SEC claims in Federal Court.
The SEC says Cantu and Page reaped "huge profits for themselves" through "their scheme to funnel CAJ shares to the public."
The SEC also sued Testre LP and Verona Funds LLC, "entities owned and controlled by Page," which sold the 30 million unregistered shares after ConnectAJet and Cantu had "pumped up demand for CAJ stock by launching a national marketing campaign, the SEC said.
It demands disgorgement and damages from Martin T. Cantu, 52, of Round Rock; Cantu's father, Martin M. Cantu, of San Antonio, "sole member and director of defendant Firenze Funds"; Firenze Funds; Page, 38, of Malibu, Calif., who operates Testre, Verona Funds and Griffdom Enterprises, as well as Lion Capital Holdings, "a public company with no apparent operations," the SEC says; Testre; Verona; and Stephen Fayette, 43, of Sarasota, Fla., a former registered representative of (nonparty) Fagenson & Co., a broker-dealer.
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