Feds Target Pacific Palisades Home

Federal authorities are attempting to seize a home in the 16500 block of Via Floresta in Pacific Palisades suspected of being purchased with profits made from an international pump and dump stock scheme.

Located in the Upper Marquez neighborhood, the home was purchased by 65-year-old Palisadian Regis Possino for his wife Karen Cicero in 2010, according to a complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in June.

Investigators believe the home was bought from “proceeds traceable to wire and securities fraud and/or conspiracy to commit those offenses, and is, therefore, subject to forfeiture,” according to the complaint.

Possino was among 14 other individuals indicted early in 2013 of defrauding 20,000 investors of more than $30 million in an international stock-manipulation scheme, according to an unsealed federal indictment.

Cicero, who no longer lives in the Palisades, was not immediately available for comment.

Possino, a former deputy district attorney who was disbarred after being arrested on suspicion of trying to sell 50 pounds of marijuana to undercover police officers in 1975, was indicted on suspicion of fraudulently inflating prices of worthless stocks by releasing “misleading press releases” and “paying stock promoters,” according to the FBI.

Prosecutors stated in the federal indictment that Possino, and the others involved in the scheme, would gain majority control of stock in publicly traded companies and then transfer shares offshore to hide the trail.

He and others involved were accused of cross-trading, a technique where perpetrators buy the stock back and forth among themselves to create the illusion that there is market demand before dumping the worthless shares on unsuspecting investors.

Possino still faces security and wire fraud charges in connection to the market manipulation scheme, according to Thom Mrozek of the U.S. attorney’s office.

One of the companies used by Possino in the scam was frogads.com, which former Baywatch actress Pamela Anderson promoted in an infomercial, said Mrozek.

“There’s nothing in there, there’s nothing to the company. It’s monkey business,” said a company CEO, who was brought in to the scheme in a wiretapped call, according to prosecutors.