Former CEO and chairman of the board of administrators of SAExploration Holdings Inc. Jeffrey Hastings pleaded responsible Friday for his position in a scheme to fraudulently and materially inflate the publicly reported income of SAEX by tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} and for misappropriating hundreds of thousands of {dollars} from the publicly traded seismic knowledge firm.
Hastings, 63, of Anchorage, Alaska, and British Columbia, Canada, pleaded responsible to at least one depend of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, to make false statements in annual and quarterly SEC stories, and to make false statements to SAEX’s auditors, which carries a most sentence of 5 years in jail, and one depend of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, which carries a most sentence of 5 years in jail.
The plea was made earlier than U.S. District Decide Gregory Woods and introduced by legal professional for america Ilan Graff, who said: “As he acknowledged in courtroom in the present day, Jeffrey Hastings schemed to inflate his firm’s income, making it seem extra worthwhile than it was. Hastings then stole cash from the corporate for his personal use. Hastings now awaits sentencing for his admitted fraud and deception.”
Hastings served as government chairman of the board of administrators for Houston-based SAEX till August 2016, then served as each chairman of the board and CEO till he separated from the corporate in August 2019. In Might 2020, SAEX was delisted from the NASDAQ and, in December 2020, was taken personal.
In keeping with the allegations, from February 2015 to Might 2019, Hastings, together with Brent Whiteley, the then chief monetary officer and basic counsel of SAEX, and Michael Scott, the then government vice chairman of operations at SAEX, and “CC-1,” the founder and at varied occasions president, CEO, and chief working officer of SAEX, devised and carried out a scheme to defraud SAEX’s shareholders, bondholders, and the investing public by artificially and materially inflating SAEX’s reported income by making it seem that Alaskan Seismic Ventures, LLC was an unbiased and dependable supply of tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} of income.
The allegations, contained within the superseding info, the superseding indictment, the criticism filed within the case, and statements made throughout the plea continuing, define the timeline of the scheme.
Starting in February 2015, Hastings and Whiteley allegedly mentioned discovering a means for SAEX to reap the benefits of sure tax credit provided by the State of Alaska to seismic knowledge library firms, to offset the prices of exploring for oil and gasoline in Alaska. When SAEX’s board was against working its personal knowledge library due to considerations about guaranteeing fee to SAEX, Alaskan Seismic Ventures (ASV) was arrange by Hastings and Whitley to keep away from the looks that SAEX was working a knowledge library firm that licensed knowledge to 3rd events, based on the allegations. Hastings recruited an acquaintance to function the proprietor and sole worker of ASV, which was not unbiased and couldn’t pay SAEX for its seismic knowledge, the allegations proceed, after which Hastings and Whiteley created and brought about to be created plenty of shell firms for the aim of secretly transferring funds from SAEX into ASV.
The shell firms included World Tools Options, presupposed to hire seismic acquisition tools to SAEX, although no tools was rented or cash owed between the 2 firms, based on the allegations, although the co-conspirators took steps to make funds seem official, together with drafting lease agreements and faking buy orders.
SAEX had recorded roughly $12 million in payables to World Tools by the top of 2015, the allegations proceed, with Hastings and his co-conspirators finally routing roughly $5.eight million of SAEX’s funds by World Tools and the opposite shell firms to ASV, with that cash then going again to SAEX to pay excellent receivables. This portion of the scheme was referred to by the boys as “round-tipping,” and was not disclosed to traders.
Moreover, the allegations state that Hastings and Whiteley then misappropriated greater than $5 million of the funds that SAEX transferred to World Tools for their very own use
Hastings is scheduled to be sentenced by Decide Woods on Nov. 15, 2021, whereas Whiteley and Scott have already pleaded responsible and await sentencing earlier than Decide Woods.