$100 million New Jersey deli stock fraud case guilty plea

A North Carolina ex-convict pleaded guilty to securities fraud in connection with conspiring to manipulate the stock of a company that once had a market capitalization of as high as $100 million despite owning just one, small money-losing deli in southern New Jersey.

The man, disgraced former stockbroker James Patten, also admitted on Wednesday in New Jersey federal court to conspiring with two other men to manipulate the share price of another related shell company, which had no tangible assets. That company’s market cap was even higher than the Hometown International deli company the men controlled.

Prosecutors said that Patten, 64, and the other two defendants conspired over eight years to increase the stock price of Hometown International and the shell company E-Waste to create a false impression of demand for the firms’ shares, and better position them as candidates for so-called reverse mergers with privately owned companies.

The other defendants, Peter Coker Sr. and son Peter Coker Jr., remain charged in the case, in which they have pleaded not guilty.

The scheme relied on a pattern of coordinated stock trading between a relatively small number of accounts nominally held by family members, friends and associates, according to court documents.

As a result, Hometown and E-Waste’s stock prices were artificially inflated by 939% and 19,900%, respectively.

The scheme began in 2014, when Patten suggested the creation of Hometown as an umbrella corporation to a friend, a high school principal and wrestling coach named Paul Morina, to own Your Hometown Deli, which Morina and another person were discussing opening in Paulsboro at the time. Morina and the other deli owner were unaware of Patten’s scheme to manipulate Hometown’s stock, authorities have said.