[ by Howard Haykin ] The SEC on Wednesday, charged a New York man with participating in a scheme to fraudulently boost the price of a real struggling penny stock company - a typical pump and dump ploy.  The man was asked to play the the role of President of a private investment company that had agreed to invest funds with the struggling penny stock company. Officials of the issuer, along with the play actor, then could spread the news about the much needed capital infusion, thereby pushing up the price of its shares. SEC Findings and Allegations. Ronald Feldstein is the individual who allegedly posed as the president of LED Capital Corp., the private investment company.  LED purportedly agreed to invest fund s into the penny stock issuer, Interlink-US-Network Ltd.  LED Capital was not real, nor was its planned investment in Interlink. [C-I Note: One year earlier, the SEC had charged Interlink with participating in a n alleged Ponzi scheme involving a green  product company, that was separate and apart from the current scheme. ]

"Feldstein was nothing more than a fake president for hire who schemed with a public company to tout news of a sham investment and deceive investors." -- Andrew Calamari, Acting Regional Director of the SEC’s NY Regional Office.

The fake transaction called for Feldstein to commit a $6 million investment by LED Capital Corp., for which it would receive a minority block of Interlink shares that had an actual market value of less than $1.2 million. It's interesting to note that Feldstein knew the actual owner of LED Capital Corp., but that didn't stop him from represented himself as that company's president, although he concealed the purported contract which committed the is company to a 500+% premium for minority shares in the penny stock company. The SEC eventually spoke with the owner of LED Capital Corp., who testified that he never had any knowledge of the purported agreement, and that Feldstein had no authority or permission to act on behalf of the company, which he said doesn’t and likely never would have $6 million available to it. For his play-acting performance as the phony president of LED Capital Corp., Interlink awarded Feldstein shares of its common stock that had a market value of more than $400,000. Interlink executed an investment agreement that was instead called a "memorandum of understanding," which all applicable parties signed and thethe memorandum was filed with the SEC by Interlink on 12/14/10. Rule Violations by Feldman. The SEC charged Feldman with aiding and abetting violations by Interlink and its President in their violations of of Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder as well as violations by Interlink of Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act and Rules 12b-20 and 13a-11 thereunder. The SEC will seek injunctions from future violations of these provisions, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, and a monetary penalty. SEC NYRO Staff Credits. Investigation by Celeste Chase and Daniel Michael.  Litigation to be conducted by Howard Fischer and Daniel Michael. For further details, go to: [SEC PR12-144, 7/25/12] and [SEC Complaint].