02:35:56 EDT Wed 16 Jul 2025
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SEC's Petroteq defendant Bongiorno pleads guilty

2024-08-09 19:26 ET - Street Wire

Also Street Wire (C-PQE) Petroteq Energy Inc

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by Mike Caswell

Christopher Bongiorno, an Ohio man charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over his touting of TSX Venture Exchange listing Petroteq Energy Inc. and another stock, has pleaded guilty to a related criminal charge. Prosecutors claim that Mr. Bongiorno, who used the alias "John Powers," operated call rooms and received illegal kickbacks in the form of undisclosed commissions. He was part of an operation that manipulated thinly traded stocks from 2016 to 2019, according to prosecutors.

Mr. Bongiorno entered the guilty plea in an appearance before a federal judge in Ohio on Thursday, Aug. 8. The charge to which he pleaded guilty is one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud. The judge scheduled his sentencing for Nov. 21, 2024, and allowed him to remain free on bond until then.

The guilty plea comes over four years after Mr. Bongiorno's legal troubles first surfaced, with the SEC filing a related civil complaint on Feb. 28, 2020. The SEC cited Mr. Bongiorno, then 42, for money that he and others raised for Petroteq and another company, US Lighting Group Inc., starting in 2015. (The SEC charges related to both companies, while the criminal case was limited to the US Lighting portion of the scheme.) Also charged was Jason Allan Arthur, then 43, of Nevada.

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