Sam E. Antar

InterOil Offers Misleading Information About Questionable Employees to Investors

FTH: Excellent points


On Jul 02 01:38 AM FeelTheHeat wrote:

> SupaSage-
>
> Mr. Casserta was barred from offering the securities of any company.
> Instead of living by this ban, he violated it by acting as a placement
> agent for Interoil stock. It makes no difference if the act he committed
> was twenty years ago or twenty months ago. By acting as a placement
> agent for Interoil stock, Mr. Casserta, showed a willful disregard
> for securities laws.
>
> It makes no difference if Mr. Casserta is in fact "reformed". Mr.
> Antar is also barred for life from offering securities, and from
> acting as an officer of a public company. Unlike Mr. Casserta, Mr.
> Antar is as far as I know abbiding by that ban. Publishing articles
> on corporate fraud, and writting a blog is not a violation Mr. Antar's
> ban. If he so wishes, Mr. Casserta may also write a blog, or publish
> articles. He chooses instead to continue to act as a placement agent
> for a public company in violation of his life-time ban.
>
> By continuing to employ Mr. Casserta, even though they knew he was
> a barred for life by the SEC, Interoil Inc. also showed a willful
> disregard for securities laws. Further, they lied to the New York
> Times about Mr. Casserta's involvement witih the company. Mr. Antar
> showed in this article for the second time in a week, that Interoil
> has no problem hidding the truth from the public if that truth is
> embarrassing or negative.
>
> I also find it interesting that so many of Interoil's supporters
> are willing to chalk up these willful violations of the law to common
> errors. One poster in this forum suggested that having an old e-mail
> address on the server of a small-cap company is common. Another poster
> on the yahoo message board attributed, Interoil's false Reg D filling
> to "forgetting to fill out a form."
>
> These assertions are simply ridiculous. As a matter of security,
> all companies immediately remove the e-mail addresses of former employees
> upon seperation. Not doing so risks that the former employee may
> use his former address to inflict harm upon his former employer.
>
>
> Besides, even if we accept that this happens "accidently" from time
> to time, what are the chances that the one employee who's address
> Interoil forgot to remove from its server just so happened to also
> be its most infamous? Slim and none. Somehow we are supposed to believe
> that Interoil both "forgot to fill out a form", resulting in a false
> Reg-D, and forgot to remove from the server the e-mail address of
> a rogue ex-employee that it had supposedly fired.
>
> I see by shareholders unite's response that they are incapable of
> understanding the purpose of Mr. Antar's mention of them in his blog.
> Shareholders Unite spends its days making excuses for all of Interoil's
> misdeeds. In the blog post quoted he tries to minimize Mr. Casserta's
> involvement by first trying to falsely cast doubt on his lifetime
> ban, and then comparing violating securities laws to "chatting up
> his wife".
>
> In other posts on the yahoo message board, Shareholders Unite makes
> it clear that he thinks that Interoil's willful violation of securities
> laws isn't a big deal. He compares these transgressions to "an unpaid
> 20 year old traffic ticket", and says that he doesn't mind if Interoil
> "cuts a few corners", as long as it helps the comapny. I heartilly
> disagree.
>
> Securities Laws aren't just minor annoyances that can be broken at
> will and brushed aside. These laws are in place to protect investors
> from unscrupulous operators who seek to line their pockets at the
> public's expense. If it is acceptable to employ persons you know
> to be banned by the securities industry, and to knowingly file false
> Reg D's, then it must also be acceptable to knowingly file false
> numbers or to lie to investors about your future prospects.
>
> If these misdeeds aren't punnished how can we take any company's
> word for anything? Investing in public companies requires a public
> trust that investors know what risks they are taking have a realistic
> idea as to the possible rewards. If this trust is broken, then the
> whole capital market system breaks down.
>
> I call on the SEC to launch a full scale investigation of Interoil
> Inc. Since the company has proven that it cannot be trusted, it must
> now turn over all interal doccuments to law enforcement to prove
> that these are the only lies it has told. Only then, can the public
> trust that Intetroil violated have a chance of being restored. <br/>

InterOil Resists an Orchestrated PR Attack

Let's start here:

You anonymously wrote, "He even tries to make our website suspect because we don't live in the US (something we've never hidden), that paragon of financial rectitude."

You are an anonymous blogger who also posts anonymously on message boards, pumping IOC day and night, and you are making allegations about a blogger who uses his real name in his blog and posts on message boards using his real name, too.

Do you agree that I am more transparent than you, since I do not have an anonymous blog and my Yahoo message board posts include my real name?

Do you deny pumping IOC on your anonymous blog and in your anonymous Yahoo posts?

InterOil Resists an Orchestrated PR Attack

To the anonymous author of this smear job on Seeking Alpha:

I have a simple question for you:

Are you responsible for the content of your blog posts on Seeking Alpha and shareholdersunite.com?

Yes or no.

Sam E. Antar (former Crazy Eddie CFO and a convicted felon)

InterOil Resists an Orchestrated PR Attack

The anonymous blogger who wrote this Seeking Alpha smear job also likes to incite violence against Interoil critics. On his anonymous blog, he posted a link to an anonymous Yahoo message board post that said:

"Sam is a liar, a crook. China hangs these kind of people....

Sam is in that corner; “China” is in our corner. Sam hasn’t a clue of the merciless beating he is about to receive. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy."

Blog Link: shareholdersunite.com/...

Yahoo Link: messages.finance.yahoo...

The anonymous blogger who wrote this Seeking Alpha smear job called the above Yahoo post one of the "good messages."

InterOil Resists an Orchestrated PR Attack

You wrote, "The story raises serious questions about the usefulness of message boards (to put it mildly) and how safe are public companies against organized attacks even in a time when naked shorting has become more difficult."

Question:

How safe are investors with anonymous stock pumper bloggers like you?

At last count you made 3,237 anonymous posts on Yahoo, pumping stocks:

search.messages.yahoo....

InterOil Resists an Orchestrated PR Attack

"He even tries to make our website suspect because we don't live in the US (something we've never hidden), that paragon of financial rectitude."

An anonymous blogger who also posts anonymously on message boards, pumping IOC day and night, is making allegations about a blogger who uses his real name in his blog and posts on message boards using his real name, too.

This convicted felon is more transparent than the writer of this smear piece.