The handfuls of cash flying out a Ford F-150′s windows in San Diego were the result of a drug bust gone awry. Spooked by a patrol car, the suspects fled just before completing a deal to buy 500 pounds of marijuana from undercover drug enforcement agents. Along the way, they tried to toss the cash they’d brought with them, throwing money onto the freeway as they led police on a high-speed chase.
Eventually, they gave up. The men in the truck were taken into custody without any more drama, just two more arrests in a sweep that included Edon Moyal, the twentysomething founder and former chief executive of Who’s Your Daddy Inc. (OTCBB: WYDI.OB).
Moyal was executive vice president of marketing and brand development at the time of his arrest. Although Who’s Your Daddy said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing last month that Moyal had resigned as an officer and director, it did not disclose his arrest or his federal indictment.
Moyal, like the others arrested, is charged with conspiracy to distribute marijuana and possession of marijuana with intent to distribute. According to court documents, he’s accused of helping to arrange the shipment of about 50 pounds of marijuana from San Diego to Maryland. The indictment alleges that Moyal was a player in a drug trafficking ring that has operated in San Diego for years, supplying marijuana to dealers all over the country.
Moyal, 28, had been hailed in Entrepreneur and other publications for developing the Who’s Your Daddy line of clothing, energy drinks and other products, and for taking his company public at such a young age.
A STRUGGLING COMPANY
Who’s Your Daddy has not been a financial success. The Carlsbad, Calif.-based company lost $2.64 million last year on $750,000 in sales. It said in a recent SEC filing that it did not have adequate capital to meet its obligations, was in default on loans, had past due accounts with vendors and had a levy on one of its bank accounts. The company’s shares are trading at 3 cents, down from a split-adjusted high of $7.74 less than two years ago.
Who’s Your Daddy’s stock was promoted in 2007 by Parabolic LLC, a San Diego company founded by Kyle Browning Rowe, a former brokerage executive who was barred from the securities industry the previous year.
Rowe, who changed his name to Marvin Kyle Rowe II earlier this year, was the subject of previous Sharesleuth stories.
(Read about how Rowe changed his name after being kicked out of the securities industry).
Parabolic promoted Who’s Your Daddy through a website called EarlyBirdStocks.com. It reported getting 250,000 shares as compensation from an unidentified third party, selling them for $278,357.
OTHER CONNECTIONS
SEC filings show that Who’s Your Daddy got funding in 2007 from entities with ties to Regis Possino, a disbarred California attorney with convictions for drug dealing and fraud.
Possino has acted as a consultant and financier for numerous penny-stock companies. Corporation records list his wife as president of Rancho Malibu Inc., one of the entities that agreed to take Who’s Your Daddy shares as payment for loans.
Another company that invested in Who’s Your Daddy was represented by David K. Rushing. He appears to be involved in Rowe’s newest venture, Going Public LLC. SEC filings show that Rushing got millions of shares in two companies that hired Going Public to help them get listed on stock exchanges.
THE DRUG CASE
The drug investigation started last December, when a police officer pulled over Danny Elia Saeed Daly for a traffic violation. According to court documents, the officer smelled marijuana and found a shoebox containing $32,000. Daly was released with just a traffic citation, but was put under surveillance.
Police later identified a house near downtown San Diego where they say marijuana was packaged and prepared for distribution. As a result of watching that property, police and the Drug Enforcement Agency eventually seized more than 400 pounds of marijuana, including 80 pounds at the house and 292 pounds in Arizona.
According to court documents, they also seized two boxes of marijuana in Maryland that they connected to Moyal.
AGENTS TRACK BOXES
The documents say agents watching the house in San Diego on March 9 saw Moyal and Brian Stanford Hampton carry two boxes from the garage and put them in the back of Hampton’s truck. The agents followed Hampton to two different postal stores, where he shipped the boxes to Maryland overnight. The next day, Maryland police seized them and recovered almost 46 pounds of marijuana.
Hampton was arrested March 19. He told drug enforcement agents that he didn’t know what was in the boxes, but that he’d agreed to ship them for Moyal. Hampton also said he’d shipped two other boxes for Moyal.
On the same day that Hampton was arrested, undercover agents were attempting to complete the sale of 500 pounds of marijuana to Daly and three other men who frequented the San Diego house. When a San Diego Police patrol car tried to pull over one of the buyers’ vehicles on the way to the deal site, the two men inside were spooked and took to the freeways, throwing fistfuls of cash out their truck windows – cash that passing motorists promptly stopped to scoop up. The men — Paul Loaiza and Zacarias Felix-Cutino — eventually stopped and surrendered.
Moyal was arrested separately. He pleaded not guilty was released on $250,000 bond. Moyal, through his attorney, declined to comment for this story. His attorney did, however, provide Sharesleuth with this statement: “Edon pleaded not guilty at the outset and is persisting in the plea. This prosecution is about his relationship with Paul Loaiza and has nothing to do with Who’s Your Daddy. Edon stepped down as officer/director for the best interest of the shareholders and only while the legal case is pending.”
