A popular fraud busting stock publication owned by Hunter Adam’s family, TheStreetSweeper.org, allegedly had given an ownership stake to people charged in the SEC’s pump and dump case against Barry Honig in return for an investment in the company. According to documents and communication reviewed by this journalist, written in March 2011, a fund called Contrarian Fund was given a 25% stake in AFB Media which is the registered parent llc for TheStreetSweeper.org. The documents show Barry C. Honig and John Stetson allegedly had ownership in Contrarian Fund. TheStreetSweeper.org published multiple short selling reports in companies like MGT Capital ($MGTI) and Cool Holdings ($AWSM) in which Barry Honig was also a PIPE Investor in at one point. TheStreetSweeper.org disclosed it also held short positions in the stocks it was publishing research on.
Hunter Adams who is on the board of TheStreetSweeper.org is the cousin of Barry Honig according to a person who both men told this to at a lunch meeting. In 2001 Hunter Adams and his brother Gregg Adams where charged criminally on multiple counts of wire fraud and securities fraud for their role in a stock manipulation scheme that was used to raise money for the mob crime family the Gambinos. One of Hunter’s co-defendants in the criminal case is the brother-in-law of Barry Honig; Johnathan Doneson is the husband of Honig’s sister Susan Gayle (Honig) Doneson.
Susan & Johnathan Doneson with brother Barry Honig
In 2010 Hunter did a interview about the start of his publication and the hiring of seasoned business jouranlist Melissa Davis. Davis was an investigative jouranlist for TheStreet.com until she said she was laid off and applied for a job with Adams. Hunter Adams said the publication was funded by his wife Suzanne Adams. California corporate registration filings show Hope Adams (believed to be Hunter’s sister) is the original manager of AFB Media. TheStreetSweeper.org said on its website AFB Media is its parent company. The California registration was then switched to Hunter Adams daughter’s name Sara Adams. In the 2010 interview the company said it wasn’t presently short the stocks they were writing on but they wouldn’t rule out the idea.
Apparently that changed when, according to documents reviewed by this reporter, Barry Honig personally lent $2 million to John Stetson via an LLC John owned with the intent for money to go to Hope Adams. According to a person interviewed by this reporter who had experience working with Honig and was interviewed for the Government investigation against Team Honig, the money was to be used to help start a trading account at a brokerage called Lightspeed. The documents say a fund called Contrarian Fund would own 25% of AFB Media and a member of the Adams family would own the remaining 75%. According to the documents Barry Honig owns 37% of Contrarian Fund. John Stetson is believed to be the manager of Contrarian Fund. The Securities and Exchange Commission accused Barry Honig of hiding over 90% ownership of another fund, called H.S. Contrarian, that was listed in SEC filings as being owned by John Stetson. Honig settled the SEC charges this June and agreed to a penny stock ban of not holding more than a 5% interest.
A review of the TheStreetSweeper.org twitter feed, and cached stories, along with reports republished at Seeking Alpha, TheStreetSweeper.org was very active detailing alleged wrong doing in tons of microcap stocks which led to a drop in the price of the stock. Major media publication like Baron’s and Bloomberg sourced TheStreetSweeper.org reports. Stocks the publication ran short reports on in which Honig also invested are: $RVLT, $MSRT, $MDXG, $HOTR, $AWSM, $MGTI.
TheStreetSweeper.org stated on its website under a section called Public Oath:
Since inception in 2009, The Street Sweeper has alerted the public to hundreds of companies that our research indicates have littered the market with deception, promotions, dilutive shares and shoddy financials that ultimately hurt the little guy.
But the company apparently forgot to mention that Barry Honig and John Stetson were allegedly also profiting from negative research published and the trading profits made by TheStreetSweeper.org after the reports ran and the stock declined.
A document from March 24, 2011 said:
“profits from operations and trading” for the TheStreetSweeper.org would be divided as follows: Hope Adams 50%, Barry Honig 37.5%, John Stetson 12.5%.
Journalist Melissa Davis left TheStreetSweeper.org around 2015. A journalist with little experience writing about securities fraud named Sonya Colberg showed up as taking over the reporting. Colberg had previously reported for Tulsa World. Since the SEC brought their case against Honig in September 2018 TheStreetSweeper.org slowed down the number of reports it ran. The last tweet on a new short report was in August 2019. The report was on United Health Products ($UEEC) and the company is now suing TheStreetSweeper.org for defamation. Honig settled the SEC case over the Summer of 2019. Over the last month since this reporter began asking questions about TheStreetSweeper.org the publication website can’t be reached with a messages saying the site’s bandwidth has been reached. A public records search shows the trademark for thestreetsweeper.org was not renewed in 2018. Sonya Colberg and Hunter Adams did not respond directly to an email for comment sent to streetsweepereditor@yahoo.com on September 13,2019.
In 2013 a hedge fund named Lakewood Capital, run by Anthony Bozza, published a statement questioning the relationship between Barry Honig and Hunter Adams. Lakewood had given a presentation at the Robin Hood stock conference about problems they saw in OPKO Health and Honig’s questionable relationship with the company. Honig and Stetson invested in $OPK, which is run by their co-defendant billionaire Philip Frost. Right after the Lakewood presentation TheStreetSweeper.org ran an out-of-character long report about all the things they thought were wonderful about $OPK. Lakewood also accused Hunter Adams and Barry Honig of being cousins and not disclosing their relationship. According to a person who worked with Honig the Adams family had been given or acquired a ton of stock options in $OPK. The options would be more valuable when the stock went up in price. The Lakewood Capital report is believed to be the first time the The Street got a whiff of how Team Honig operated.
In May 2017, TheStreetSweeper.org ran a critical article on John McAfee selling assets to MGT Capital accusing the company of being pumped with an expectation of a coming dump. They followed up with another story in August 2017 analyzing questionable investments made by MGT. None of the articles mention that John Stetson and Barry Honig were also investors in MGT, which the SEC complaint showed they also benefited from the quick rise of the stock. MGT’s president Robert Ladd is also a co-defendant in the SEC Honig case and is fighting the charges. Ladd didn’t respond to a request for comment about Honig’s alleged investment in TheStreetSweeper.org. You see while Honig invested in MGT Capital he also got really pissed when Ladd pulled out of a deal that would have given Honig a ton of cheap stock warrants in MGT via an invest in a company called DeamonSaw that MGT was going to buy. And Honig sued Ladd and MGT in 2017 around the time TheStreetSweeper.org short reports were coming out. Honig eventually dropped the litigation against MGT according to filings in federal court.
The theory among people interviewed by this reporter who have worked with Honig is TheStreetSweeper.org was used by Honig to help short stocks of the companies he had gotten out of at the top of the pump. (or in the case of $OPKO benefit from long reports) There could be questions on if this would constitute a Reg SHO violation which says investors in PIPE deals can’t also short the stock. The SEC rule was set up because PIPE investors usually cross the Chinese Wall and have access to material non public information of the company they invest in. A PIPE deal is a private investment in a public entity. Based on reporting by this reporter over the last four years it is becoming clear how Honig allegedly made money on every piece of a financial transaction involving publicly traded companies. The government could also be looking at a new set of charges if the Adams family, Honig and Stetson were trading as an undisclosed group of affiliates. I have previously reported the San Francisco DOJ has an open investigation into Team Honig and charges are expected in the near future. The SEC has confirmed the DOJ criminal investigation in court documents filed in federal court.
Yesterday a lawyer from Oakland, California, David Shapiro, who said he represents TheStreetSweeper.org emailed this reporter saying “Barry Honig or any of his LLCs did not have any ownership in TheStreetSweeper.org”. This morning after I obtained additional information showing the plan for Contrarian Fund to be used to invest I asked the lawyer if his client wanted to clarify their statement based on very detailed documented evidence. Attorney Shapiro wrote back says ‘the statements you are making are false and could be considered defamatory’. I responded I am running the story and will use this as their on the record comment. Attorney Shapiro does not represent Barry Honig. An additional email was sent to Honig’s AOL email account asking to comment on his relationship with TheStreetSweeper.org and the alleged profits he received from the short seller reports. Honig did not respond. An email was also sent to John Stetson’s attorney George Conellos at Millbank which was not returned for comment.
Melissa Davis the original editor of TheStreetSweeper.org could not be reached for comment. I have obtained no evidence or testimony that Davis knew about Honig’s alleged role with TheStreetSweeper.org. Sonya Colberg would not answer questions about what she knows about Honig’s alleged involvement. The last time @sonyacolberg tweeted was August 13,2019. Given the evidence obtained for reporting on this story goes back to 2011 there is no clear line of evidence to how long Honig and Stetson allegedly stayed invested in TheStreetSweeper.org.
Hunter and his brother Gregg Adams were ordered to pay $5 million in restitution and fines in their stock manipulation criminal case from 2001. After the criminal case Hunter Adams was broke, according to a person who worked on the case. Barry Honig is also helping his cousins in their house flipping business. Honig and his cousin Gregg Adams were recently sued over one of the rehab home deals in California state court. Honig owns a company called Three Kings of Queens which corporate records show was tied to the Adams family via Suzanne Adams.
UPDATE: 10-9-19: TheStreetSweeper.org and it’s reporter Sonya Colberg were sued in Nevada state court yesterday by one of the companies ($UEEC) it recently published a short report on.
Share Your Voice