Monday, October 11, 2010

Who would have thought that Erik Estrada would have the more dignified career?

From the New York Times:

5:34 p.m. | Updated Larry Wilcox became famous for playing Officer Jon Baker on the hit television series “CHiPs” decades ago. But what about his most recent role — as the president and chief executive of a California company called the UC Hub Group?

Mr. Wilcox, 63, was among a handful of people who were accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday of securities fraud and paying illicit kickbacks in order to manipulate the price of penny-stock companies, the UC Hub Group among them.

What the UC Hub Group actually does, however, is an open question.

Mr. Wilcox is accused of paying $16,000 in kickbacks to an undercover F.B.I. agent in return for the agent purchasing 1.6 million restricted shares of stock in Mr. Wilcox’s company — which the S.E.C. said in its complaint “purports to be in the mining, energy, and global Web television businesses.”

The UC Hub Group’s Web site, with garishly snazzy Flash animation and chirpy background music, says that the company “is currently focused on Precious Metals, Gems, and the Oil and Gas Industry.”

But it is hard to discern what being focused on such things actually entails — a matter that has long been the subject of debate on an investors message board about the company. (There even exists a blog devoted to arguing that Mr. Wilcox is up to no good, and for nefariousness beyond the kickback scheme in which the S.E.C. has accused him of partaking.)

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