Diane Dalmy, 63, of Denver, Colorado, has admitted her role in a sprawling securities fraud scheme that fleeced investors out of millions through a rigged stock “pump and dump” operation. The attorney pleaded guilty today in New Haven federal court before U.S. District Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer, waiving indictment on one count of conspiracy.
Court documents reveal Dalmy used her law license as a weapon, drafting and authorizing fraudulent legal opinion letters that unblocked restricted shares for shell companies under the control of co-conspirator William Lieberman of Boca Raton, Florida. These companies — including Mammoth Energy Group, Inc. (later Strategic Asset Leasing Inc.) and Fox Petroleum, Inc. — had no real business operations but were instead vehicles for deception, their stock prices artificially inflated through lies in press releases, emails, and cold calls.
As the scheme raged from January 2009 to July 2016, Dalmy acted at Lieberman’s direction, ghost-writing false opinion letters not only in her own name but also in the name of another Colorado attorney. These included “adequacy” letters posted on an electronic securities marketplace, falsely assuring investors that sufficient public information existed to make informed decisions. In reality, the companies were hollow shells, and the advice was a legal fiction.
Dalmy didn’t just lend her name — she deepened her complicity by funnelling investor funds through her Lawyer Trust Account (IOLTA), advancing money belonging to unsuspecting clients to prop up the fraud. Those clients had no idea their funds were being used to grease the wheels of a criminal enterprise designed to enrich Lieberman, Christian Meissenn of Suffield, Connecticut, and a network of stock promoters.
From February 2015 to July 2016, Dalmy escalated her criminal involvement by laundering approximately $825,000 in illicit proceeds. She helped Lieberman incorporate Queen Asia Pacific Ltd. (“Queen Asia”), opened bank accounts in its name, and then cycled money from the company’s brokerage account through her IOLTA before sending it to Lieberman, Meissenn, and other promoters. Each transfer was a fresh stain on her professional ethics and the law.
U.S. Attorney John H. Durham emphasized the betrayal at the heart of the case: an attorney who twisted legal tools into instruments of theft. Dalmy’s guilty plea exposes how white-collar criminals exploit trust, paper, and privilege to plunder the financial system. Sentencing is pending, but the damage — millions lost, lives upended, confidence shaken — is already written in red ink.
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Key Facts
- State: Connecticut
- Agency: DOJ USAO
- Category: Fraud & Financial Crimes
- Source: Official Source ↗
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