2 Sentenced For $2.5M Investment Scheme

ATLANTA, GA — A pair of men from Dunwoody and Alpharetta have been sentenced to federal prison for their roles in a $2.5 million investment fraud scheme.

Marc E. Bercoon, 58, of Dunwoody, and William A. Goldstein, 54, of Alpharetta, each were sentenced to 10 years in prison followed by three years of supervised release and to pay $1,496,733 in restitution.

The two were accused of manipulating the stock market for shares of MedCareers Group, Inc. — a publicly traded company — and creating a new corporation that was used as bait for investors.

(For more news like this, find your local Patch here. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app; download the free Patch Android app here.)

From July 2009 to September 2011, Bercoon and Goldstein crafted a "pump and dump" scheme in which they arranged for MedCareers to issue a series of misleading press releases and email filings to raise the company's stock price.

At the same time, people working with the pair were sending out mass emails talking up the company's stock.

While the price and demand for the stock was artificially high, they sold off their stock using several different accounts in other people's names in an attempt to hide their identities.

Around the same time, Bercoon and Goldstein created a new corporation, Find.com Acquisitions, Inc. and solicited investments from dozens of people. They told investors their money would be used to develop an internet search engine, Find.com.

Instead, they used most of the money for other things, like financing other business ventures and making payments to themselves and their families. About $550,000 of the $1.5 million invested in the phony venture was simply withdrawn from the bank as soon as it was invested, prosecutors say.

"At the same time they were rigging the stock market, the defendants fleeced dozens of investors in a separate fraud scheme," said U.S. Attorney Byung J. "BJay" Pak. "Today’s sentencing marks a fitting end to the defendants’ long history of cheating investors out of their hard-earned money."

The charges in the case came from an FBI investigation in which court-authorized wiretaps were used to intercept telephone conversations. Bercoon and Goldstein had been convicted by a jury on Feb. 21 on 12 counts of conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud and securities fraud.

Photo via Shutterstock