A California District Judge harshly refused former Signalife and Heart Tronics lawyer Mitchell Stein’s motion for a retrial, taking offense to the request itself.
Stein was convicted in May 2013 of 14 charges of fraudulently inflating share prices for heart monitoring devices maker Signalife (later Heart Tronics). Federal prosecutors called for a $5.4 million fine to account for Stein’s ill-gotten gains as well as those of his former chauffeur and co-conspirator.
Stein has been petitioning for a retrial since at least September 2013, filing several motions over the last few months, all of which were summarily dismissed by Judge Kenneth Marra.
"The Court finds these motions not only to be baseless, but also offensive," Marra wrote in his ruling this week. "There was more than sufficient evidence presented upon which a reasonable jury could find, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Defendant was guilty.”
Marra further denied Stein’s request to compel prosecutors to produce documents and meeting minutes of grand jury proceedings, as well as Stein’s motion for conditional release pending sentencing, according to court documents.
Stein and handyman/chauffeur Martin Carter, who pleaded guilty in 2011, personally reaped a total of nearly $5.4 million from a scheme in which they set up a series of sham transactions and entities to bilk investors, according to the lawsuit. In 1 instance, prosecutors said, Carter set up a brokerage account from which he sold more than $1 million worth of Signalife stock and transferred the proceeds to Stein.
The scheme eventually ensnared alleged co-conspirator Willie Gault, the ex-Chicago Bears and track star who became the co-CEO of Heart Tronics in 2008.
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