A Wisconsin woman has been charged with theft over accusations she tried to profit from Facebook’s much-anticipated plans to go public by selling fake stock in the social media giant.
Facebook announced on Wednesday its plans for the biggest-ever Internet IPO.
In a criminal complaint on Thursday, prosecutors said Marianne Oleson told acquaintances she obtained $1 million in stock because her daughter was an acquaintance of Facebook’s founder and persuaded several people to buy fictitious Facebook stock over a four-month period.
The Oshkosh woman was charged with 31 counts of theft, forgery and making misleading statements.
One of Oleson’s victims was a contractor who did work at her house in September. Oleson paid the contractor for the work with $13,980 worth of fake Facebook stock, the complaint alleged.
The contractor, who also paid $10,000 in cash to the woman for additional stock, grew suspicious when he found she lied about her name and various oddities on documents referring to the transaction. Read the full article »