UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Litigation Rel. No. 17245 / November 21, 2001

    SEC Obtains Preliminary Injunction Against Broker in Identity Theft
                  and Penny Stock Manipulation Fraud Case.

   SEC v. Robert C. Ingardia (United States District Court for the
   Southern District of New York, C.A. No. 01-CV-8356 (WHP), filed
   September 6, 2001)

   The Commission announced today that, on November 8, 2001, the
   Honorable William H. Pauley III, United States District Judge for the
   Southern District of New York, issued a preliminary injunction and
   granted other ancillary relief against Robert C. Ingardia, a broker
   most recently affiliated with the New York City-based brokerage firm
   of Joseph Stevens & Co. ("Joseph Stevens"), based on the Commission's
   prima facie showing that Ingardia had engaged in violations of the
   antifraud provisions of the United States securities laws.

   The Commission's Complaint alleges that, from at least June 2001
   through the date of the filing of the Complaint, Ingardia and certain
   unknown individuals engaged in an identity theft and penny stock
   manipulation fraud. According to the Complaint, in late June 2001,
   Ingardia, who has been employed since 1996 by at least six
   broker-dealers besides Joseph Stevens, including the now defunct New
   York City-based Mason Hill & Co. ("Mason Hill"), began making
   telephone calls to several other brokerage firms, including Fidelity,
   Charles Schwab and Brown & Co., in which he assumed the identity of at
   least eight of his present and former Joseph Stevens and Mason Hill
   customers. The Complaint further alleged that, after he had
   successfully assumed the identity of his customers, Ingardia would
   generally, without authorization, change the address to which all
   correspondence concerning the account, including trade confirmations,
   should be sent, and then liquidate the account by placing unauthorized
   orders to sell all or many of the stock positions it contained. Using
   the cash proceeds of the liquidation, Ingardia would then place
   unauthorized orders to buy huge quantities of penny stock in either
   Converge Global, Inc. ("Converge"), a Utah corporation headquartered
   in Santa Monica, California or Equity Technologies & Resource, Inc.
   ("ETCR"), a Delaware corporation headquartered in Lexington, Kentucky.

   According to the SEC, in the course of this fraudulent scheme,
   Ingardia and certain unknown individuals working in concert with him
   made more than $1.1 million worth of unauthorized trades in the
   brokerage accounts of unsuspecting investors, including liquidating
   more than $800,000 worth of stock and purchasing more than $230,000
   worth of stock in Converge and ETCR. Transactions effected by Ingardia