A former broker who pleaded guilty to securities fraud in November 2016 was sentenced to 18 months in prison Friday, the Eastern District U.S. Attorney's Office said Friday.
Gerald Cocuzzo pleaded guilty to a single count of securities fraud after prosecutors alleged he was part of a scheme to defraud investors in the LED lighting company ForceField by controlling the price and volume of its shares.
According to the government, the Florida-based Cocuzzo helped manipulate stock prices by orchestrating trades to appear as genuine trading volume, and making secret payments to promoters and broker dealers to sell the company's stock, among other schemes. Prosecutors said the scheme caused a loss of approximately $131 million to the investing public.
For his part, Cocuzzo received secret cash kickbacks in 2015 through an intermediary working on behalf of ForceField in exchange for purchasing more than $485,000 worth of stock in his clients' accounts, prosecutors alleged. Cocuzzo and the executive, former Mitchell & Sullivan Capital managing partner Jared Mitchell, would meet in person to make the cash handoff. According to documents kept by Mitchell, Cocuzzo was promised $33,500 in kickbacks, none of which were disclosed to his clients.
Cocuzzo's sentencing is the third so far in the ForceField fraud investigation, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. Six other defendants, including five who have pleaded guilty and one convicted, are awaiting sentencing.
Elizabeth Macedonio of the Law Offices of Elizabeth Macedonio in Manhattan represented Cocuzzo. She could not be reached for comment Friday.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Mark Bini and Lauren Elbert prosecuted the case.