Alleged scammers behind PlexCoin have until January 11th to produce disclosures
The defendants had had to provide the necessary disclosures by December 17, 2018, but failed to do so.
The lawsuit targeting alleged cryptocurrency scam PlexCorps also known as PlexCoin and Sidepay.Ca, Dominic Lacroix and Sabrina Paradis-Royer, continues at the New York Eastern District Court.
On Friday, January 4, 2019, Magistrate Judge Robert M. Levy signed an order directing the defendants to produce disclosures in a timely manner.
The defendants were required to make their initial disclosures by December 17, 2018. When defendants failed to do so, plaintiff – the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) moved to compel, asking the court to require defendants to produce their initial disclosures immediately. Defendants failed to respond or provide a reason to delay their disclosures. Accordingly, defendants are ordered to complete their initial disclosures by January 11, 2019. Failure to comply may result in sanctions.
Let’s recall that, in November 2018, Judge Carol Bagley Amon of the New York Eastern District Court granted a Motion for a Preliminary Injunction against Dominic Lacroix and Sabrina Paradis-Royer, the individuals behind alleged cryptocurrency scam PlexCorps a/k/a and d/b/a PlexCoin and Sidepay.Ca.
As per the Order, pending a final disposition of this action, Lacroix and Paradis-Royer are preliminary enjoined and restrained from:
- employing devices, schemes, or artifices to defraud;
- making any untrue statements of a material fact or omit to state a material fact necessary in order to make the statements made, in light of the circumstances under which they were made, not misleading; and/or
- engaging in acts, practices, and courses of business which operate or would operate as a fraud or deceit upon any person.
It is further ordered that, pending a final disposition of this action, Lacroix is preliminary enjoined and restrained from engaging in the offering of unregistered securities or violating Sections 5(a) and 5(c) of the Securities Act, by making use of the means and instruments of transportation or communications in interstate commerce and of the mails to sell securities through the use of means of a prospectus.
The Order also stipulates that, pending a final disposition of this action, Lacroix and Paradis-Royer, as well as each of their financial and brokerage institutions, officers, agents, servants, employees, and attorneys, and those persons in active concert or participation with them shall hold and retain within their control, and otherwise prevent any withdrawal, transfer, pledge, encumbrance, assignment, dissipation, concealment or other disposal of any assets, funds, or other property of, held by, or under the control of Lacroix and Paradis-Royer. It is further ordered that, pending a final disposition of this action, Lacroix and Paradis-Royer and each of their officers, agents, servants, employees, and attorneys, and those persons in active concert or participation with them are preliminarily enjoined and restrained from soliciting, accepting, or receiving any investor funds, whether from new or existing investors.
According to the SEC’s Complaint, from August 2017 through the present, the defendants obtained $15 million from thousands of investors, including those throughout the United States and in the Eastern New York District, through materially false and misleading statements.
In documents recently filed with the Court, the SEC noted that newly discovered evidence demonstrates that the defendants spent thousands of dollars on numerous Facebook advertisements that directly targeted and reached users in the United States and that promoted the PlexCoin ICO as an investment opportunity, and that purchasers viewed PlexCoin as an investment opportunity from which they hoped to profit based principally on the PlexCoin team’s efforts. The newly discovered evidence also provides additional detail as to how Lacroix and Paradis-Royer misappropriated a portion of the PlexCoin ICO funds for personal use.
Furthermore, the SEC said, the new evidence, including Lacroix’s own admissions and the declarations of his employees, further confirms that the defendants raised money in the PlexCoin ICO through a series of false representations, such as claims that the PlexCorps team consisted of more than forty individuals based in Singapore, when, in reality, PlexCorps and the ICO were run by Lacroix and a handful of his associates in Quebec, Canada.
