The former chief executive of an obscure California holding company pleaded guilty on Tuesday to falsely claiming to have developed an anti-anthrax product during the 2001 U.S. anthrax scare, prosecutors said on Tuesday. Federal prosecutors in San Diego said Charles Kallman, CEO of 37Point9 Inc., issued two fake press releases in October 2001 to boost his company’s sagging stock price. The press releases claimed that 37Point9 Inc. had developed and tested a product called “SurfaceShield” that killed anthrax and other bacteria, viruses, germs and fungi. The releases stated that a wholly owned subsidiary of 37Point9 had entered into an agreement to enhance SurfaceShield to kill dormant anthrax bacilli before they released their deadly spores. Prosecutors said that the company had entered no such agreement. The spurious announcements sent the trading volume of 37Point9 Inc.’s penny stock soaring by 1,500 percent in Nasdaq over the counter trading, and boosted the stock price by 300 percent, prosecutors said. Full Story
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