But Taylor called with promises that the stock would bounce back on the promise of Rasmussen's stadium golf plans, Barber testified. Taylor told him he wanted the chance to regain his trust, Barber testified. Later, jurors heard secretly recorded tapes of Taylor's Stadium Naples investment pitch filled with hyperbole and lies that prosecutors plan to use to show that Taylor betrayed the trust of his clients and committed stock fraud crimes in doing so. Prosecutors say Marchiano, who denies wrongdoing, ran a boiler room in Naples, where cold-calling brokers hyped Stadium Naples to sell Millennium stock, pumping up demand to inflate the price. Lies to investors are part of the modis operandi, regulators and prosecutors say.
Later insiders dump their shares at large profits creating price slides that devastate investors.
Taylor, of Golden Gate, is charged with seven felony counts, including securities fraud and grand larceny. If convicted on the most serious charges, he could face up to seven years in prison. On one of three taped telephone conversations, recorded by an undercover investigator posing as an investor, Taylor says he sat in the zoning meetings for Stadium Naples approvals. No such zoning meetings ever took place. And Taylor says on tape that Millennium controlled the patent to Rasmussen's stadium golf idea and had a controlling interest in the Stadium Naples start-up company.