Christian Meissenn, Convicted Penny Stock Manipulator, Dies In Car Crash

A Connecticut stock manipulator who received a relatively short, three-month sentence because of a terminal illness after stealing nearly $20 million in a “pump-and-dump” scheme has dead three years later after a car crash on I-95.

Christian Meissenn, the ringleader of a penny stock pump-and-dump scheme that swindled more than 12,000 people, was killed in a car crash in Connecticut. He was 49 years old.

What Happened: Meissenn died when his vintage Lincoln Town Car crashed on I-95 in Greenwich, a suburb of New York City, on Aug. 16, according to a Hartford Courant report.

At the time of his death, his LinkedIn profile identified him as a business partner in the Officina Cucina restaurant in Glastonbury, Connecticut.

However, Meissenn gained national notoriety for his role in a seven-year operation where he coordinated the defrauding of investors by inducing them to invest in penny stocks attached to shell companies. Meissenn and his co-conspirators pumped up the stocks’ value by purchasing them, only to let the value collapse with a massive sell-off that left his investors with worthless and unsalable stock.

Most of the swindled investors were elderly and entrusted their life savings with Meissenn and his crew. Collectively, these investors lost nearly $19 million.

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What Else Happened: In November 2016, Meissenn pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and one count of tax evasion.

But Meissenn’s attorney convinced prosecutors and U.S. District Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer to give him a lenient sentence, arguing that he was afflicted with the rare blood cancer Erdheim-Chester disease and retroperitoneal fibrosis and would face certain death in a federal prison system that was not equipped to provide him proper care.

“I have to wonder whether some providential force — I’m sure you have too — has sentenced you to something worse,” Meyer told Meissenn in November 2018 when issuing a three-month prison sentence followed by three years of home confinement and an order to pay restitution in excess of $5.3 million.

Photo: Chris Pastrick from Pixabay.