Thailand has extradited an American fugitive accused of stock manipulation in the bizarre case of a money-losing New Jersey deli once valued at $100 million, he boarded a plane bound for the US late Tuesday in the custody of U.S. Marshals.


The defendant, Peter Coker Jr., is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Newark, New Jersey, according to his attorney, John Azzarello.


Coker Jr., 54, was arrested in the Phuket resort area in mid-January. He was apprehended more than three months after his two co-defendants, his father Peter Coker Sr. and James Patten, were arrested in North Carolina.

Coker Jr. had been held in a Bangkok jail since his arrest by Thai authorities and was awaiting transport to the United States, having waived extradition.


Coker Jr.’s legal team, according to Azzarello, is “still in discussions with” the US Attorney’s Office in New Jersey about a possible bail package.


He wouldn’t say whether prosecutors were against a judge releasing Coker Jr. on bond.

All three defendants are charged in a 12-count indictment in federal court in Camden, New Jersey, with financial crimes involving two publicly traded companies.


Hometown International, one of those companies, owned only a small, now-closed deli in Paulsboro, New Jersey. The other company, E-Waste, was a shell company with no assets.


Prosecutors accuse the trio of a scheme to artificially inflate the value of both companies’ stock shares to absurdly high levels in order to make them attractive takeover targets for private firms hoping to capitalize on their stock market tickers.

“These tactics artificially inflated the price of Hometown International and E-Waste stock by creating the false impression that there was genuine market interest in the stock,” prosecutors said last fall in a news release.


“Their scheme had the ultimate effect of artificially inflating the stock of Hometown International by approximately 939 percent and the stock of E-Waste by approximately 19,900 percent.”





Thailand Extradites American Wanted In $100 Million Fraud Case