| joeyd |
Nov 3rd, 2005 05:36 PM |
SEC acts against St Kitts-based resort owner
Apr 22, 05: Frigate Bay, St. Kitts, /CaribPRNewswire/ - Roland M. Thomas, 55, a British citizen operating as the chief executive officer and principal of the Angelus Resort in Frigate Bay, St. Kitts, has been sued in a civil fraud enforcement action in Denver, Colorado by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The April 5th, 2005 Complaint in Securities and Exchange Commission v. SeaLife Corporation et al. also names ERT Technology Corporation, a Delaware corporation owned by Thomas.
Thomas, a resident of Las Vegas, Nevada, is, according to the SEC's recent Complaint, alleged to have participated in the United States in a scheme to fraudulently manipulate the price of the shares of SeaLife from December 2002 to August 2003. This is the same time period in which Thomas, in an unrelated matter which took place in St. Kitts, and during the terminal illness of the former owner of what was once called the Paradise Beach Resort & Casino, took control of the Frigate Bay, St.Kitts, resort and changed the name to the Angelus. Subsequent to Thomas' actions, a group of 120 US investors became entangled in a civil suit in the High Court of Justice of St. Kitts, seeking the return of millions of dollars that they claim were used to buy the land and build the resort. The Angelus has denied any knowledge of the investors' interest in the property.
The Claimants before the High Court in the St. Kitts, led by representatives Richard Rowe, a Federal Express pilot from Niceville, Florida and Mark Secrist, an American Airlines pilot from Winchester, Virginia, discovered that they were victims of an apparent investment fraud involving the Frigate Bay resort in April of 2003. This is in the same time period when the SEC alleges that Thomas took part in a different scheme to defraud the investing public in the US by using misleading information and manipulative stock trading to create artificial market prices for SeaLife Corporation, a Nevada Corporation.
On April 8th, 2005, the Honorable Justice Davidson Baptiste, St. Kitts, ordered that all outstanding applications be heard by the Master in chambers on April 27th, 2005. Court records show that the Angelus, their officers and two of their lawyers have been accused by the Claimants of being in contempt of Court for disobeying Justice Baptiste's February 2004 order to produce records. Four former Angelus employees have provided 'whistle-blower' affidavits asserting that several boxes of records were packed and shipped off-island after the court ordered the officers of the Angelus, which would include Thomas, to produce them.
In July 2004, the High Court struck out the contempt proceedings against Thomas and the other lay respondents because they were not first warned of the consequences of disobeying a court order; but the contempt proceedings remain outstanding against two of the defendants' St. Kitts lawyers, Larkland Richards and Sylvester Anthony. The Claimants' contempt application is on hold pending their appeal of the July 2004 order striking it out in respect of the lay respondents.
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