Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Lemelson files Writ of Certiorari with US Supreme Court in Unprecedented 9-year SEC Fight

Rev. Father Emmanuel Lemelson and Lemelson Capital Mgmt., LLC v. Securities and Exchange Commission

SHELBURN, VT / ACCESSWIRE / August 1, 2023 / Whistleblower and activist investor Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Lemelson (Lemelson) has filed for a writ of certiorari in Lemelson, et al. v. SEC, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to grant his petition in an unprecedented nine-year legal battle with the SEC over Ligand Pharmaceuticals.

To access the full writ of certiorari, click here

This follows a November 2021 federal jury trial that cleared Lemelson of all fraud charges that were alleged by the SEC in a baseless 2018 complaint.

“The Supreme Court must uphold its legacy of safeguarding First Amendment rights,” said Fr. Emmanuel Lemelson.

“The SEC’s concerted effort to use litigation to “silence” a whistleblower, fueled in part by inappropriate lobbying and prosecutors bent on ignoring the Constitution, is utterly shameful,” Lemelson added.

The 2021 federal jury specifically found that Fr. Lemelson did not “intentionally or recklessly engage in a scheme to defraud, or any act, practice, or course of business which operates or would operate as a fraud or deceit.” The jury also determined that he did not defraud his own investors, even under a lower negligence standard, and that his harshest statements about Ligand’s insolvency were not untrue.

Lemelson, in 2014, issued five critical reports and gave several interviews about Ligand, making hundreds of allegations, including business, accounting, and securities fraud against the company and filing five whistleblower reports. His criticism proved prescient as Ligand’s stock price subsequently fell precipitously.

Lemelson continued publicly criticizing Ligand and the SEC (for their inaction, for what he called “The Ligand Fraud“) through 2018, including publishing two open letters to Congress.

For its part, Ligand quietly enlisted a former high-ranking SEC official and a sitting US Congressman (who was later criminally indicted) to “lean on” the SEC to investigate, using baseless allegations against Lemelson. In trial testimony, John Higgins, the former CEO of Ligand, acknowledged that the company’s executives wanted Lemelson “silenced for good.”

Eventually, the SEC charged Lemelson with fraud in 2018. Although a jury rejected all of SEC’s fraud allegations, it found that one sentence and one sentence fragment, about a different company that he didn’t trade in, and embedded in his 56 pages of written reports and one two-second comment in an online interview were purportedly misleading.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts then held Fr. Lemelson liable for violating the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and SEC Rule 10b-5. It fined Fr. Lemelson $160,000 and barred him from making similar statements for five years.

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About Lemelson Capital Management and Fr. Emmanuel Lemelson

Fr. Emmanuel Lemelson is a Greek-Orthodox Priest, whistleblower, activist investor, and CIO of Lemelson Capital Management, LLC, a private investment management firm focused on deep value and special situation investments.

Follow LCM on Twitter @LemelsonCapital – Follow Fr. Emmanuel Lemelson on Twitter @Lemelson

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Media and Public Relations Contact

Lemelson Capital Management, LLC
Investor and Media Relations
Telephone: 802-332-3833

SOURCE: Lemelson Capital Managemenet, LLC