Attorney linked to deli owner involved in stock scams

A lawyer who has now been denied and pleaded guilty to federal crimes related to shell company scams is listed as a lawyer in early financial documents filed by a New Jersey firm, whose share valuation is up to $ 100 million. or more, despite the fact that he has only one small delicacy.

Former attorney Gregg Jaclin was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2015 and 2016 by deli owner Hometown International.

It contains the very first document that Hometown submitted to the SEC and that is publicly available.

In June 2020, Jaclin pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and obstruction of justice. Separately, in a related case, the SEC handed down a final verdict against him in 2019 ‘for running a fraudulent shell factory scheme whereby sham companies are made public and sold profitably’, a press release in that year noted.

The companies involved in these actions – none of which were Hometown International – were incorporated into Nevada with the help of Jaclin, who was expelled from his job in New Jersey last October.

Records show that Hometown International, although its only business in southern New Jersey, was incorporated in Nevada itself.

In a 2015 letter to Hometown International, SEC staff wrote: “We believe you are a shell company.”

Hometown International and its executives have not been accused of misconduct by the SEC or other government authorities.

Hometown International’s share, which trades on the over-the-counter market, fell by about 33% in the hours after trading began. A day earlier, CNBC had published articles about the company’s extraordinarily high market capitalization, first noted in a letter sent to clients by hedge fund manager David Einhorn.

“The pastrami must be incredible,” Einhorn said in his letter.

Share prices recovered significantly during the day. Hometown’s share closed at $ 12.99 a share on Friday, down 3.78% from the previous day.

Jaclin, who is still serving his three-year suspended sentence under supervision for his criminal case, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Nor did other figures linked to Hometown International, including its top corporate executives and current attorney, and whoever monitors the company’s voicemail, when CNBC called them.

Paul Morina is the President and CEO of Hometown International, which owns Your Hometown Deli in Paulsboro, New Jersey.

Morina is also the principal and head coach of the well-known wrestling team at Paulsboro High School. SEC documents show he owns 1.5 million shares in Hometown, with warrants for another 30 million shares.

Hometown’s vice president and secretary is Christine Lindenmuth, a maths teacher and administrator at the same high school.

Lindenmuth’s home address is listed as the Hometown International address.

The biographies of Morina and Lindenmuth in SEC files mention no previous experience by any of them in the food service industry, a corporation in the trade or the financial industry.

Hometown’s deli has sold just $ 35,000 in the past two financial years. The deli was closed from mid-March to early September last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Nevertheless, it recently traded nearly 8 million common shares at levels of nearly $ 14 per share, giving a market capitalization of more than $ 100 million.

A woman who answered the phone at the deli on Friday asked, “Do you want to place an order?”

She then went up to the caller after he identified himself as a reporter and said he wanted to talk to someone about Hometown International.

In SEC filing, Homeland is blunt about its business prospects.

“Our financial situation casts doubt on whether we will continue as a going concern.” says the company in a submission.

The company proposes that it should obtain an acquisition target or additional financing to maintain the operations.

“Future success depends a lot on management’s ability to locate and attract a suitable acquisition,” Hometown said in a submission last year.

Major shareholders of Hometown International also include entities in Hong Kong and Macao, China, a mecca for high-value gamblers.

Hometown chairman Peter Coker Jr. is listed as the chairman of a Hometown investor who also operates a luxury hotel in Macao known as The 13.

The hotel has a fleet of Rolls-Royce Phantoms available as limousines for hotel guests. Online booking sites indicate that the 13 hotel does not currently accept bookings.

Coker’s father, Peter Coker Sr., is listed in financial documents as another major shareholder in Hometown.

The older Coker, who lives in North Carolina, is listed on the SEC and owns 63,334 shares of common stock in Hometown International, with warrants for another 1.26 million shares.

Elder Coker has been identified in other SEC-filed documents as the founder and managing director of Tryon Capital Ventures, a North Carolina entity. Hometown pays Tryon $ 15,000 a month under a consulting agreement.

“We anticipate the extension of the term of the consultation agreement with Tryon for an additional term of one year,” reads the annual report of Hometown.

In 2019, an investor named W. Robert Bizzell hired Peter Coker Sr. and other management partners of a company called Tryon Capital LLC in the North Carolina Business Court.

The lawsuit alleges, among other things, fraud in the attractiveness and constructive fraud in connection with the fact that Bizzell invested in another Coker Sr. affiliated entity, SSAC Capital. It is also said that the money from Bizzell is intended to expand a specialty business for Southern Season in Chapel Hill.

According to Bizzell, the defendants ‘deviated from’ their use of his money, which amounted to hundreds and thousands of dollars and converted his interest as a debtor into equity.

Coker Sr. and the other defendants denied Bizzell’s allegations.

An attachment in August 2020 indicated that the case was voluntarily dismissed by Bizzell with prejudice, which is normal if civil litigation is settled by the parties out of court.

John Marshall, a lawyer for Bizzell, declined to comment when CNBC contacted him. He said he was bound by the terms of a confidentiality clause in the settlement agreement.

Coker Sr. did not return requests for comments. An attorney for him did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Public reports show that Coker Sr. lived in Macungie, Pennsylvania.

In 1992, The Morning Call published an article in nearby Allentown stating that in a bankruptcy case by Peter Coker, American Express Bank had allegedly fraudulently transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars of its assets to thwart its collection efforts at nearly $ 900,000. . “

According to the newspaper, American Express said that Coker is a solvent debtor who wants to appear insolvent. ‘