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by Mike Caswell

Prosecutors in New York have asked for a 10-year jail term for Ronald Hardy, the manager of a boiler room that defrauded scores of investors, many of them senior citizens, of at least $14.6-million. (All figures are in U.S. dollars.) The government says that Mr. Hardy, 44, was a significant participant in a scheme that touted a handful of thinly traded companies, including onetime Canadian Securities Exchange listing Intelligent Content Enterprises Ltd. The stocks, which increased by a combined $147-million during the manipulation, later collapsed.

The request from prosecutors comes as part of a case in which the government pursued several people associated with a boiler room that operated in the New York area. The operation used what prosecutors describe as heavy-handed tactics, with cold-callers at times threatening investors in order to have them buy shares. Mr. Hardy's part in the fraud included managing the call centre and calling victims himself, using the aliases "John Gold" and "Steven Weiss," the government says. Mr. Hardy did not go on trial, as he entered a guilty plea on Aug. 22, 2018.

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