United States v. Tyler Tedrow

Criminal Docket Number:  18-CR-00455

Description:

The defendant has been charged with violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (“Exchange Act”), and the rules promulgated thereunder, for his involvement in a securities fraud and market manipulation scheme colloquially known as a “pump and dump,” whereby the participants fraudulently inflate (or “pump”) the price of a security through fraudulent misrepresentations and manipulative trading, before selling (or “dumping”) their shares and obtaining illicit trading profits.  The scheme, which occurred from at least September 2012 through at least May 2014, involved the common stock of Mainstream Entertainment, Inc., n/k/a Volt Solar Systems, Inc. (“Mainstream”).  The defendant, as well as other participants in the scheme, knowingly communicated false and fraudulent information about Mainstream and its securities to the investing public through, among other things, the dissemination of bogus press releases and the preparation and dissemination of a fraudulent Form 8-K securities disclosure filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) on February 8, 2013.  The Form 8-K included numerous material misrepresentations about Mainstream, including that Mainstream had business operations, when, in fact, it had none. The Form 8-K also failed to disclose the substantial stock ownership of defendant Tyler Tedrow, his brother, and their father.  Further, their substantial ownership of Mainstream common stock was not otherwise disclosed to the SEC or the investing public, as was required by the Exchange Act and SEC rules.  The defendant and the other schemers also used manipulative stock trading techniques to fraudulently inflate the price of Mainstream stock before selling their stock and reaping illicit trading profits, to the detriment of the investing public.