BULLETIN: 3 New Defendants In ‘Red Sea Management’ Case Have Been Arrested; New Charges Filed Against Original Defendants In Alleged Stock-Manipulation Scheme Over Which Purported One-Time ‘Consulate’ To Nonexistent Nation Of ‘New Utopia’ Allegedly Presided

BULLETIN: Federal agents have arrested three new defendants in the alleged Red Sea Management stock-manipulation scheme. The arrests occurred in three U.S. states last week, and one of the new defendants already was in custody for a separate scam, federal prosecutors said.

Arrested were Timothy Barham Jr., 43, of Henderson, Tenn.; Nathan Montgomery, 30, of Henderson, Nev.; and Ryan Reynolds, 39, of Dallas. Reynolds already was in custody. The SEC charged him in 2008 in a separate scam, according to records. He is a defendant in at least two separate SEC actions.

Red Sea allegedly was operated by Jonathan Curshen, a convicted felon and the one-time purported “honorary counsel” of St. Kitts-Nevis to Costa Rica. Curshen, 46, of Sarasota, Fla., also has been referenced as a purported “consulate” to the bizarre, nonexistent nation of “New Utopia.”

New Utopia has purported to be an underwater nation that will rise out of the Caribbean on concrete stilts.

On March 10, the PP Blog received a bizarre communication from a person who purported to be “Mr. Protector” and complained about the Blog’s coverage of the New Utopia fantasy, which the SEC said was dreamed up by American Lazarus R. Long more than a decade ago.

Long has described himself as a “Prince.” New Utopia, which purportedly is located undersea “approximately 115 miles west of the Cayman Islands,” has offered driver’s licenses for $140.

The communication both invited and uninvited the Blog to witness the debut of the New Utopia “Palace” on a date uncertain.

“How about we print your words out about New Utopia in size 12 font and then, when New Utopia Construction begins, we can invite you there in front of the Palace and watch you eat the words and the paper they are written on?” the person wrote.

In the very next paragraph, however, the Blog was uninvited.

“[H]ow will we know to not allow you to visit The Principality of New Utopia?” the person inquired. “We will find a way of that be assured.”

Read the Justice Department statement on the new defendants and a superseding indictment against the original defendants. The original defendants included Curshen; attorney Michael Simon Krome, 49, of Long Island, N.Y.; Ronald Salazar Morales, aka “Ronny Salazar,” 39, of Costa Rica; Robert Lloyd Weidenbaum, 44, of Miami; and Eric Ariav Weinbaum, 37, and Izhack Zigdon, 47, both of Israel.

The case was brought by elements of the interagency Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force created by President Obama in November 2009.

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  1. Are these guys “sovereign” citizens?