SEC Charges Convertible Note Dealer and its Long Island-Based Owners for Failure to Register
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced settled charges against a convertible note dealer, Crown Bridge Partners, LLC, and its managing members, Soheil and Sepas Ahdoot of Great Neck, N.Y., for failing to register with the SEC as securities dealers. As part of the settlement, the Ahdoots and Crown Bridge agreed to pay more than $9 million in monetary relief and to surrender or cancel securities of 82 different issuers they allegedly obtained from their unregistered dealer activity. The SEC’s complaint, filed in the federal district court in Manhattan, alleges that, between January 2016 and December 2020, Crown Bridge purchased about 250 convertible notes from 150 microcap issuers, and converted the notes into 35 billion newly issued shares of stock at a large discount from the market price. It then allegedly sold the newly issued shares into the market at a significant profit. As alleged, neither Crown Bridge nor the Ahdoots were registered as dealers with the SEC or...