SEC Brings Additional Charges in New York Boiler Room Scheme Targeting Seniors

The Securities and Exchange Commission today brought additional charges against a Long Island, New York-based boiler room previously sued for defrauding elderly and unsophisticated investors. The latest charges allege that First Choice Healthcare Solutions Inc. CEO Christian Romandetti, the boiler room, and four others, manipulated the company’s shares generating more than $3.3 million of illegal profits and more than $560,000 in kickbacks for Romandetti. The SEC’s complaint alleges that Romandetti and the other defendants duped more than 100 victims in a scheme that inflated First Choice’s stock price from less than $1 per share to $3.40 per share. According to the complaint, from at least September 2013 until about June 2016, the defendants used multiple accounts in an attempt to disguise their trading, engaged in manipulative trading practices, and hired Elite Stock Research, a boiler room run by defendant Anthony Vassallo, to promote First Choice to vulnerable investors, some of who invested retirement savings…