Glen Head penny stock financier settles with SEC

A Glen Head penny stock financier has agreed to give up almost $1.2 million in profits and interest and pay penalties totaling $273,000 for violating securities laws.

Under the settlement announced by the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, Curt Kramer and his Great Neck-based firms Mazuma Corp., Mazuma Funding Corp. and Mazuma Holding Corp. neither admitted nor denied guilt, but agreed to the financial penalties and a disqualification from using a legal exemption that lets some companies sell up to $1 million in unregistered securities in a 12-month period.

Kramer's Manhattan-based attorney, Barry Goldsmith, declined to comment on the case.

In one instance, the SEC found that Kramer and his firms bought two billion unregistered shares of Laidlaw Energy Corp. whose value exceeded $1 million.

Because the shares exceeded the $1 million limit, the agency said, they should have been registered when they were resold.

In a separate transaction, Kramer and his companies bought at a discount and resold more than one billion shares of Bederra Corp. in 2009 and 2010. The Bederra stock was acquired and resold to the public improperly, without a registration statement, for a profit of $934,404, the SEC said.

"Unless there is a valid exemption, shares can't be sold publicly without a registration statement that provides investors with the level of detail they deserve about the investment opportunity being offered," Michael Paley, co-chair of the SEC Enforcement Division's Microcap Fraud Task Force, said in a statement.