ThePhantom
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Infinium founder charged with using "impending Phantom launch" to inflate and sell stock
Timothy Roberts, the founder and former CEO of Infinium Labs, the company that promised us the Phantom (which came in at second on Wired's list of vaporware products of '06), has been accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission of artificially inflating stock and selling it on at a $422,500 profit. The SEC alleges that Roberts hired a promoter to send junk faxes to investors citing the Phantom's imminent launch, when in fact the console had postponed the launch due to insufficient funds. According to the SEC, Roberts then sold 1.3 million shares from the company -- without any disclosure -- and secretly paid the promoter he had hired. These two actions, unfortunately for Roberts, are against the law: the SEC has asked a court to force Roberts to surrender the cash, pay a penalty and to prohibit him from ever becoming a CEO again.Meanwhile, the company -- sans Roberts -- has blown through $63 million without producing the Phantom and has lost another CEO yet still claims to be relevant and capable of launching The Phantom along with a useless lap-based keyboard accessory. Someone put the company out of its misery. Pretty please?[Thanks, Neal]
