Dunwoody Man Charged in Stock Market Manipulation

Businessmen from Dunwoody and Atlanta have been indicted on federal charges that they manipulated the market for shares of Medcareers Group, Inc., and bilked investors out of $1.5 million for a phony Internet search engine startup.

Marc E. Bercoon, 54, of Dunwoody, and William A. Goldstein, 51, of Atlanta, face charges of conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud, securities fraud, and money laundering in connection with two fraudulent schemes. They were indicted by a federal grand jury on Jan. 21.

“These defendants are charged with manipulating the stock of a publicly traded company by carrying out pump and dump schemes,” said Acting United States Attorney John Horn in a news release. “They are also charged with orchestrating an investment fraud scheme using a separate, private company, and laundering the proceeds of that fraud.”

According to Horn and court documents, from July 2009 through September 2011, the defendants conspired to manipulate the market for shares of Medcareers Group, Inc., a company quoted on the over-the-counter bulletin board under the ticker symbol MCGI. The conspiracy culminated in two “pump and dump” schemes carried out in March and May 2010.

Authorities allege that to inflate stock prices, Bercoon and Goldstein arranged for Medcareers Group, Inc. to issue a series of misleading press releases and SEC filings, at the same time as co-conspirators sent out mass emails touting the stock. While the price of MCGI and the demand for the stock were both artificially high because of these efforts, the defendants orchestrated a massive sell-off of their stock, coordinating activity in multiple accounts listed in the names of other people and entities to hide the defendants’ involvement.

The indictment also says that from May 2009 through June 2010, the suspects solicited investments, telling the targets that their money would be used to develop an Internet search engine named “Find.com.”

Instead, the defendants allegedly most of the $1.5 million raised from investors to subsidize other business ventures and much of the money was withdrawn from the bank in cash shortly after being invested, authorities say.

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