SEC Files Additional Charges in Fitbit Stock Manipulation Scheme

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission press release --------- The Securities and Exchange Commission today filed fraud charges against a second defendant in connection with a scheme to manipulate the price of Fitbit securities through false regulatory filings. According to the SEC's complaint, Mark E. Burns purchased Fitbit call options just minutes before he and his co-conspirator, Robert W. Murray, filed a fake tender offer on the SEC's EDGAR system purporting to acquire Fitbit's shares at a substantial premium. The SEC charged Murray last year and he recently was sentenced to prison in a parallel criminal case. The false tender offer was made in the name of ABM Capital LTD – a nonexistent company for which the defendants created an EDGAR account. Fitbit's stock price temporarily spiked when the tender offer became publicly available on Nov. 10, 2016, and Burns sold all of his options for a 350 percent profit of approximately $13,000. To learn more click on the picture below to read the release.