Fed. Sec. L. Rep. P 93,427 John E. Morgan v. United States

This is an appeal from a dismissal of a motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 to set aside a conviction in February 1971 on two counts of an information charging violation of an injunction entered in December 1968. We affirm.

Appellant was president of a Nevada corporation which encountered difficulties with the Securities and Exchange Commission over the sale of unregistered securities. In a civil action, the district court permanently enjoined appellant and other corporate officers from using the mails to sell corporate stock, unless it was exempted from the provisions of Section 5 of the Securities Act, 15 U.S.C. § 77e.

Nine months later appellant and others were indicted for conspiracy and sale of unregistered stock, and appellant was charged in two counts with offering to sell “certain [unregistered] securities, to wit, promissory notes . . . ” There followed extended delays and pretrial appearances. After a jury had been impaneled, appellant appeared with counsel and agreed with the government to plead guilty to a superseding information charging him in two counts with a violation of the 1968 injunction. The court accepted the plea after a careful inquiry into the voluntariness of…