A San Diego man was one of 14 people indicted in what federal prosecutors said was a massive $147 million stock swindle that manipulated share prices and trading volume in five companies.

Lawrence David Isen, 65, was among those charged in a three-year-long “pump-and-dump” scheme that often targeted elderly investors with high-pressure sales tactics from a boiler room operation located in Long Island, N.Y.

Isen was described in the 50-page indictment from the Eastern District of New York as a marketer who ran the San Diego-based firm Marketbyte.

He was also once a stock broker but was barred from the industry in 1995 for defrauding customers of the penny stock brokerage company where he worked, by misleading them about the profit potential of buying stock in companies that in reality were having financial problems.


He appeared in federal court in San Diego Wednesday for a formal proceeding to remove his case to New York, where it will be heard.

The indictment said that the defendants acquired stocks from insiders at five companies, at below-market prices. They then engaged in a sequence of stock trades aimed at artificially pumping up the price of the stock.

As the price climbed, members of the ring called and emailed potential investors, many of them elderly, pressuring them to buy the stocks, according to the indictment. At the same time the defendants sold off their own stakes, without telling investors — “dumping” the stocks after “pumping” up the price.

The indictment said that Isen was involved in two such scams, one involving a now bankrupt Houston, Texas, company called Hydrocarb Energy Corporation, and a second involving a Canadian company called Intelligent Content Enterprises Inc.


In all, the defendants netted $14 million in profits, according to prosecutors. Isen’s personal and corporate accounts profited by about $383,000 from trades in the Houston company alone, said the indictment. It was unclear how much he may have made on the second company’s trades.

Isen was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and a charge of securities fraud.


Twitter: @gregmoran

greg.moran@sduniontribune.com