SEC Charges Father-Son Duo and Associate in Market Manipulation Schemes Resulting in a New Jersey Deli with a $100 Million Valuation
The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Peter L. Coker Sr., Peter L. Coker Jr., and James T. Patten for their roles in orchestrating fraudulent manipulative securities trading schemes. These schemes included artificially inflating the share price of Hometown International, which operated a New Jersey deli producing less than $40,000 in annual revenue, from approximately $1 per share in October 2019 to nearly $14 per share by April 2021, leading to a grossly inflated market capitalization of $100 million. According to the SEC’s complaint, Patten, Coker Sr., and Coker Jr., who was the former Chairman of the Board of Hometown International, took control of the outstanding shares of Hometown International and a separate shell company, E-Waste Corp., artificially inflated the price of both issuers’ stock through manipulative trading, and used the entities to acquire privately-held companies in reverse mergers, with the intent to thereafter dump their shares at grossly i...