So Who Is This ‘Steve Pluvia,’ Anyway?

NEW YORK —  A powerful attraction of the Internet for many people is that it offers a stage where players may write their own parts. In the fluid and anonymous world of the Net message boards, a performer once cast as a villain may later take on the role of a hero simply by adopting a new persona.

Consider “Steve Pluvia,” an online short-seller who revels in puncturing over-hyped and dubious securities on financial message boards run by Silicon Investor and Yahoo.

His real name is Steve Keyser, also the name of a former target of a Securities and Exchange Commission fraud action. Pluvia denies they are the same person. In any case, he has used a combination of sharp stock analysis and a sarcastic, in-your-face writing style to become a successful cyber-sleuth under the Pluvia alias.

In a recent example, Pluvia was among the first to call attention to several tiny stocks that were inexplicably surging to unprecedented highs in heavy trading in January.

Pluvia’s skeptical messages and those of other online bears apparently prompted the SEC to call an unusual two-week trading halt in the stocks. (The SEC declines to reveal the sources that led to its inquiry.)

Two of the stocks, Citron and Electronic Transfer Associates, later were linked by the SEC to an ex-stockbroker with a record of securities fraud. The shares collapsed in price.

In a congratulatory message, Pluvia praised the work of his Silicon Investor allies and said that his own role had been exaggerated.

“I don’t care who takes credit, or who took credit,” Pluvia wrote, “all I care about is that the scam is uncovered.”

Protagonists and Antagonists

Not surprisingly, Pluvia’s attacks have made him enemies, one of whose attempts to squelch the online attacks backfired by practically turning Pluvia into a folk hero.

In August 1997, John Westergaard, a veteran stock promoter, posted an Internet message offering a $5,000 cash reward for “the most complete dossier” on Pluvia, who had been attacking one of Westergaard’s clients, Premier Laser Systems, an Irvine-based maker of dental lasers.

Pluvia had been insisting in Internet postings that Premier’s machines were inferior and overpriced and would never be accepted by dentists. He also questioned the firm’s sales figures.

The Westergaard bounty, which many considered an intimidation tactic, became a cause celebre on the Silicon Investor Web site.

Pro-Pluvia messagers flocked to dig up dirt on Westergaard. They revealed that Westergaard was being paid to promote Premier Laser, a fact he hadn’t initially disclosed.

The other side uncovered information that Pluvia was in business supplying teeth-cleaning lasers to dentists, and as such was a customer of a Premier rival, Ion Laser Technology--a fact Pluvia hadn’t initially disclosed but later acknowledged.

The feud ended in a truce that left both declaring victory.

Westergaard still brags that he made Pluvia back off. Pluvia crows that he was vindicated when the Nasdaq Stock Market halted trading in Premier’s stock last year. Also, the firm was forced to restate earnings, and it paid to settle an investor lawsuit. Its shares plunged from a 1998 high of $11.69 to a recent price of $2.37.

On the Silicon Investor site in January, Pluvia indulged in a virtual touchdown dance. In a reference to Premier Chairman Colette Cozean, he wrote:

“CC hunny[sic]--if you’re out there, this is Steve Pluvia your proctologist. I just want you to know that since you tried to play rough with poor little Pluvia, Pluvia’s research caused you to get your stock halted, caused you to admit you cooked the books, caused Westerfraud to admit he was your paid whore, and caused you to get sued for which you are now paying a very hefty price.”

Pluvia lives and works in Las Vegas. In telephone interviews with The Times--he supplied his phone number in response to an e-mail request--and other news organizations, he has described himself as a 37-year-old college dropout and former stockbroker who manages about $10 million for himself and a few private investors.

Pluvia told The Times that in two months of trading this year, he turned a $540,000 profit on $75,000 in capital, going both short and long (i.e., betting on some stocks’ falling and other stocks’ rising).

Pluvia tries to shroud his identity in mystery, but his real name is no secret to those who followed his online campaign a few years ago against Teletek, a Las Vegas-based long-distance telephone company.

Teletek stock collapsed amid criminal charges that brokers were bribed to pump up its shares. Several brokers pleaded guilty in the scheme, and charges are pending against two former executives.

In 1997, Teletek’s new management named a Steven Keyser and one of his Internet allies to an “independent advisory committee”--a move announced in a company news release.

Keyser, as Pluvia, then referred to his new status in a message on the Silicon Investor. At the same time, he disclosed that he had switched from a bear to a bull on Teletek, calling the shares “a very good buy at present prices” of 87.5 cents.

The stock today trades sporadically at less than a penny a share.

SEC Obtains Injunction

In 1987, the SEC obtained a permanent injunction against a Steven Keyser, then age 26, accusing him of diverting for his personal use “almost all” of the proceeds of a 1985 stock offering in a Salt Lake City firm called L’Oiseau Bleu (French for “bluebird”).

Pluvia, in telephone interviews, denied any involvement in the case and declined even to confirm that he is Keyser. Keyser’s Las Vegas telephone number is not published.

Interestingly, however, Pluvia’s involvement in the dental laser business coincides with that of the Steven A. Keyser associated in Nevada court and corporate records with a Las Vegas business called Laser Brite Teeth Whitening Center.

Moreover, the same Steven A. Keyser--as identified by Social Security number--was listed in a 1994 tax case in Salt Lake District Court with the identical address given for his father in the SEC stock-registration statement for L’Oiseau Bleu’s initial public offering.

Steven Keyser was listed as president of the firm and his father as secretary-treasurer. The “blind pool” offering was intended to raise $200,000 to $400,000 to be used to “engage in the acquisition of business endeavors in one or more industries,” according to the registration statement, but it is unclear how much actually was raised.

The federal judge in Utah who issued the injunction against Keyser in November 1987 also entered an order of disgorgement, but payment was waived “after Keyser turned over to L’Oiseau Bleu Corp. all of the corporation’s common stock remaining in his possession,” the SEC said in a news release at the time.