Seven people, including a banking executive who used to be married to a star of the HBO hit series “The Sopranos,” have been indicted over allegations that they ran a $300 million stock manipulation scheme, Reuters reports. The indictment, which was unsealed on Thursday in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, charges Abraxas Discala, the chief executive officer of merchant banking firm OmniView Capital Advisors and the former husband of Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who played Meadow Soprano, with 10 criminal counts, including securities fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy.
Discala and Marc Wexler, President of OmniView, teamed up with brokers Matthew Bell and Craig Josephberg and the Chief Executive Officer of medical education company CodeSmart, Ira Shapiro, to inflate stock prices, according to the indictment, which was announced by Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch. The defendants bought up three million restricted shares of the stock, hyped it up using exaggerated press releases and then pushed the stock into clients’ accounts as they sold it and its value dropped, The New York Times reports.
