{"id":1625,"date":"2008-06-28T17:47:25","date_gmt":"2008-06-28T23:47:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sequence-inc.com\/fraudfiles\/?p=1625"},"modified":"2012-01-02T10:02:57","modified_gmt":"2012-01-02T16:02:57","slug":"short-selling-miscreants-ball-and-conspiracies-oh-my","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/short-selling-miscreants-ball-and-conspiracies-oh-my\/","title":{"rendered":"Short Selling, Miscreants Ball, and Conspiracies&#8230; OH MY!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On August 12, 2005, Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com (NASDAQ: OSTK) had a conference call he said was going to give information about the &#8220;August 11 lawsuit.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sequence-inc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/06\/ostk081205.pdf\">The transcript<\/a> is 17 glorious pages of Byrne rambling about his conspiracy theories. No questions. Just Byrne and conspiracy theories. I read it on Thursday. And I didn&#8217;t really know what to do with it. Do I try to summarize all the nonsense? Then what?<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately, a poster on a stock message board has saved me the trouble. Here&#8217;s what he calls the Reader&#8217;s Digest version of the transcript. If you&#8217;re normal, you will get less than 1\/4 through it and swear that this person is lying. The transcript of this public conference call sponsored by Overstock.com couldn&#8217;t <strong>possibly<\/strong> have happened this way. Oh yes, it could. Read the transcript for yourself!<!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>I haven&#8217;t jumbled the order, this really is the way Whacky Patty made his rant. Note the lack of facts.<\/em><br \/>\nI&#8217;m getting out of the business of fighting shorts.<br \/>\nI believe Overstock has been damaged and we sued &#8230; I think the trail leads farter.<br \/>\nI&#8217;m a value guy and am indifferent to stock price.<br \/>\nCEO&#8217;s who obsess about shorts are fools.<br \/>\nI&#8217;m going to describe a set of events<br \/>\nBTW someone stopped by yesterday and said this<br \/>\nI&#8217;m calling this the Miscreants Ball<br \/>\nTalk about market participation volume<br \/>\nWeave story about it must be due to offshore naked shorting<br \/>\nBring up Bob O&#8217; Brien<br \/>\nBob is a used medical equipment salesman but I believed his yarn<br \/>\nHe predicted I would be written about, self-fulfilling prophecy after the conference call<br \/>\nThree months later OSTK was on the Reg SHO list<br \/>\nThe SEC investigated us, at least someone said they did, so I beleived them so Bob was right but I can&#8217;t prove it<br \/>\nNow talk about the Not Neccessarily Miscreants Ball<br \/>\nHedge by saying he isn&#8217;t saying they&#8217;ve done anything wrong or illegal, will ignore this part later<br \/>\nPut Leon Black in a box because he is a hedge fund guy. Won&#8217;t say anything about him, he is just an example of a hedge fund giu\/<br \/>\nBrings up many names, sort of free flow of names<br \/>\nSide session about Jim Caruthers and a PI and a detroit lawyer. Fades off.<br \/>\nName various other people, stinger missles, unsupported claims about gophers.<br \/>\nGets into Milberg Weiss who were already under investigation for making kickbacks in shareholder lawsuits<br \/>\nDavid Rocker knows these people so they must be bad people too<br \/>\nRant about Herb Greenberg for being evil and writing a lot of articles about Novastar, Novastar proves to be a trainwreck<br \/>\nCracks gay joke about Herb<br \/>\nSide session into an ex-employee being recruited.<br \/>\nJumps to Camelback who wrote reports about Overstock prior to Overstock decrapitating<br \/>\nMentions another unnamed somebody who told him something about Camelback, so know Patrick knows for a fact<br \/>\nStarts talking about David Rocker and Camelback, gets distracted and brings up Herb again<br \/>\nHerb talks to David, this must be bad, reporters shouldn&#8217;t talk to people<br \/>\nSays the name Jessie Essinger and then immediately jumps back to Camelback<br \/>\nTurned in Camelback to state regulators, Patrick is a good guy so reporting companies is OK if he does it<br \/>\nJump to Elizabeth McDonald, says she is fine. Not sure why he brought her up.<br \/>\nNow Carol Remond, mentions that she is French, I guess that is important to Patrick.<br \/>\nWhoops, never mind about Carol, jump to Barrons.<br \/>\nBarrons consists entirely of hedge fund quislings because Patrick says so.<br \/>\nMentions Einhorn&#8217;s ex-wife, thinks they are still married. He&#8217;ll get back to her also, is now about 10 deep in the get-back-to-it queue<br \/>\nSays he is going to tell some stories. Wait a minute, he&#8217;ll get back to that too.<br \/>\nHas to talk about Elliot Spitzer first. He is a close friend of Jim Cramer, that can&#8217;t be a good thing.<br \/>\nAnother untold mystery, Patrick knows who Spitzer will be going after next, never comes up again. Maybe it was hookers.<br \/>\nTalk about Kroll, says they have been trying to dig up dirt on him. He knows that for a fact because Jules Kroll knows David Eihorn.<br \/>\nBack to the SEC. And the DOJ. Something about people digging up dirt on companies and telling the government, must be bad.<br \/>\nSays he doesn&#8217;t know for a fact but the DOJ looked into him. Somebody told him. Maybe a little birdie.<br \/>\nSays a paper was written tying him to Al Qaeda and terrorism and money laundering. Patrick knows this because someone told him<br \/>\nRemembers he was going to tell some stories, see 7 lines back.<br \/>\nCalls Dave Patch a strange guy because Dave Patch is a strange guy.<br \/>\nRepeats claims of the strange guy that people are watching the strange guy to keep him from telling the world about his strange ideas.<br \/>\nPatrick believes strange guy.<br \/>\nTalks about Mary Helburn and says she is a lovely woman.<br \/>\nMary has a nephew who was in an accident and she takes care of him.<br \/>\nPatrick says messages were posted by a Mike Helburn. Patrick seems to have made this up.<br \/>\n|Patrick says messages were posted by dead sister of Mary saying &#8220;wish you were here. Patrick seems to have made this up.<br \/>\nStarts talking about Bob O&#8217; Brien, says Bob was claiming posters were paid by Cohodes. Bob seems to have made that up.<br \/>\nFinds it interesting that Yahoo deleted Bob&#8217;s account for posting someone&#8217;s address in violation of the TOS.<br \/>\nMentions nice apology from Bob, doesn&#8217;t mention Bob later trying to justify his actions.<br \/>\nThinks it interesting that someone immediately knew it was Cohodes address, Patrick should look into Google.<br \/>\nPatrick thinks it strange that article about Bob&#8217;s violation of Yahoo TOS didn&#8217;t mention entirely different subject of strange man&#8217;s claims.<br \/>\nSee strange man&#8217;s claims 11 lines up. Nobody cares about strange man&#8217;s fantasy.<br \/>\nBack to Jesse Essinger, tracking down Bob O&#8217; Brien, no idea why Bob O&#8217; Brien is hiding, must be a strange man also<br \/>\nSidetracked with story about tape recorders.<br \/>\nTalk about Patrick secretly funding NCANS which was focused on keeping Novastar investors in the dark.<br \/>\nJump to story about Patrick&#8217;s cell phone getting hacked. It went dead and message in Spanish came up.<br \/>\nStory about how Bob O&#8217; Brien&#8217;s cell phone records getting stolen at the same time Patrick&#8217;s phone goes dead.<br \/>\nSays Jessie was arrested by the police in Las Vegas for trespassing. Patrick made it up.<br \/>\nSays Jessie was cited by the police. Patrick made it up.<br \/>\nBack to Carol Remond, says she was given assignment by hedge fund. Patrick admits it is just a personal opinion.<br \/>\nPatrick says everything above is just an opinion and doesn&#8217;t know for certain except for some things.<br \/>\nDoesn&#8217;t mention which things.<br \/>\nBack to his stock being destroyed.<br \/>\nSith Lord. Maybe this is his opinion also.<br \/>\nThe end.<br \/>\nSays he isn&#8217;t paranoid.<br \/>\nWait, more about Einhorn and Rocker.<br \/>\nTalks about multiple cell phones and SIM cards used by Einhorn. Doesn&#8217;t mention buying dozens of cell phones for<br \/>\nBob O&#8217; Brien to keep him safe for the evil hedge funds. Maybe theEinhorn story is another opinion.<br \/>\nSays Eihorn is shy and cautious. Probably doesn&#8217;t want strange people like Dave Patch around.<br \/>\nBack to Rocker. Never mind, back to the SEC.<br \/>\nReg SHO.<br \/>\nJust tell us the size of the fails. Says we don&#8217;t need anything else, just give us the number.<br \/>\nLater they get the number and Patrick says they need more data because it doesn&#8217;t show 10 million naked shorted shares.<br \/>\nSays he is know going to talk about some facts. At last.<br \/>\nStarts talking about numbers of shares, starts guessing, maybe the part about facts was premature.<br \/>\nTalks about taking baths, train of thought back to Carol Remond and gay bathhouses. Mentions she is French again.<br \/>\nSays he wants to go back to talk about Kroll. It&#8217;s somewhere up there, don&#8217;t know how many lines.<br \/>\nThought someone was intercepting his communications, his bat sense was tingling.<br \/>\nStarts talking about Channel A and Channel B. Tells one channel he is gay. Tells another he is a coke head.<br \/>\nPeople start saying Patrick is gay. Patrick says this is proof his communications were intercepted. Does not consider tinfoil hat.<br \/>\nSays he isn&#8217;t a coke head. He just sometimes says he is.<br \/>\nSide trip to Stanford about talk with professor.<br \/>\nSays professor was asked if Patrick was a cokehead.<br \/>\nDecides he is going to get to the bottom of the gay cokehead leak and heads over to Kroll (back 7 lines)<br \/>\nTells Kroll he wants to hire them as a test to see if they are investigating him.<br \/>\nPatrick says he made something up when he talked to Kroll. Patrick makes things up a lot (see above)<br \/>\nKroll can&#8217;t get straight answer from Patrick, so Patrick concludes they are investigating him.<br \/>\nPatrick now knows for a fact that Kroll is investigating him. Or he thinks they are, but it is a fact in his mind.<br \/>\nSays people may think he is nuts.<br \/>\nTalks about how people can get paper certificates to fight the shorts. No mention if this constitutes obsessing about shorts (see fools comment at top)<br \/>\nDidn&#8217;t specifically suggest Novastar investors get paper certificates to fight the shorts. Novastar subsequently says it is just about bankrupt.<br \/>\nLong talk about transfer agent to get paper certificates. Must fight shorts or giving up fight, not sure which.<br \/>\nSays there are no shares to cover. Subsequently OSTK drops to single digits and shorts cover.<br \/>\nSEC, regulators and lawyers. Got to fight those shorts or not.<br \/>\nMentions O&#8217; Quinn.<br \/>\nCalls shorts parasites.<br \/>\nKilling small companies, doesn&#8217;t mention any by name, may be referring to CMKX Diamonds or Eagletech.<br \/>\nRefers to himself or Overstock as a nuclear submarine. Probably an opinion though he may know it for a fact.<br \/>\nMentions another fantasy about fighting off thugs in an alley.<br \/>\nSays this is his last time talking about it. It isn&#8217;t his last time talking about it.<br \/>\nTalks about Elgindy.<br \/>\nSide trip into looking at IP addresses at Bob O&#8217;Brien&#8217;s stock promotion website. Looking at IP addresses is a very important job.<br \/>\nMentions people from Saudi Arabia reading Bob O&#8217; Brien&#8217;s blog. Blog later falls off the radar when Novastar crashes and Bob is exposed as a two-bit grifter.<br \/>\nBack to CEO&#8217;s who care about short sellers are generally crooks. Except for Patrick because he is different, really.<br \/>\nSays CEO&#8217;s are suppose to lay back and think of England. Huh?<br \/>\nBack to Kroll investigating him and all the other opinions that he knows for a fact.<br \/>\nSays he has a black Irish temper.<br \/>\nSays the Feds are going to bury the Sith Lord under a prison.<br \/>\nSays he is going to enjoy helping. Sith Lord part may be an opinion, or an opinion that he knows for a fact.<br \/>\nThe end again, really<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On August 12, 2005, Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com (NASDAQ: OSTK) had a conference call he said was going to give information about the &#8220;August 11 lawsuit.&#8221; The transcript is 17 glorious pages of Byrne rambling about his conspiracy theories. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[827],"tags":[1488,1315,1487,1300,916,915,188,1489,1095,1114],"class_list":["post-1625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-public-companies","tag-bob-obrien","tag-conspiracy-theory","tag-miscreants-ball","tag-naked-short-selling","tag-o-co","tag-overstock","tag-patrick-byrne","tag-reg-sho","tag-short-sellers","tag-sith-lord"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Z0e-qd","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1625\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}