EConnect Suspect Misses Court Date

Stephen Sayre, a Los Angeles tree trimmer, failed to appear in federal court Friday for a hearing in the civil suit in which the Securities and Exchange Commission alleges he made illegal profits by recommending shares of EConnect Inc.

U.S. District Judge Margaret Morrow ordered assets owned by Sayre, 43, to remain frozen after finding that he wired $1.3 million to a Bank of Montreal account in Vancouver, Canada. The money came from his sale of 177,300 shares of EConnect, a company he had urged investors to buy in four research reports he published on the Internet.

The SEC alleges that Sayre failed to disclose his ownership of the stock. In the first research report on EConnect, Sayre said he didn’t own any of the company’s shares.

San Pedro-based EConnect’s stock soared from $1.39 on Feb. 28, the day before Sayre’s first report, to $21.88 on March 9, giving the company a market value of more than $3 billion. EConnect, which says it is developing Internet banking software, has tumbled to 75 cents.

“We believe he’s fled the jurisdiction,” SEC attorney Aimee Dominguez-Silvers said.