Reginald Middleton, a self-acclaimed financial guru and CEO of the Veritaseum Blockchain platform, has requested more time to respond to the charges filed by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for allegedly offering unregulated securities.
As the proceedings continue at the New York Eastern District Court, the defendant filed a document with the court to extend the initial date from November 4, 2019, to December 4, 2019.
According to the SEC’s complaint, the defendants allegedly raised about $14.8 million through the sales of unregistered securities dubbed “VERI Tokens,” “VERI,” or “Veritas.” The offering was illegal, as there was no registration statement filed or in effect for the offers and sales of VERI.
The defendants conducted the offering in a so-called initial coin offering (ICO), which reportedly took place on April 25, 2017, to May 26, 2017, and in post-ICO offers and sales.
Also, SEC added that the fundraise was operated with materials consisting of misinterpretations and omissions, which misled investors about their prior business venture, while also touting that VERI had an increase in demand by investors.
The defendants misappropriated investor assets. They made a series of manipulative trades of the VERI Tokens in an effort to raise their price and to lure investors into purchasing more tokens, according to the SEC’s filing.
However, upon the request today for postponement by the counsel of the defendants, which SEC did not oppose, they involved parties have engaged in ongoing discussions regarding a possible resolution of the case, per the report.
The platform, Veritaseum, specializes in building blockchain-based, peer-to-peer capital markets as software on a global scale. The token VERI is ranked 233 with the market cap at $32.36 million, on the price of $15.05 per unit, according to CoinMarketCap.
In a similar announcement in September, the U.S SEC charged Jonathan Lucas, the founder of the online adult entertainment marketplace, Fantasy Market, for a fraudulent initial coin offering (ICO) in August 2017, wherein it raised not less than $63,000 from over 100 investors.
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