John Babikian

John Babikian (born August 5, 1988 in Montreal, Quebec) is a Canadian digital marketing expert.
In 2013, at the age of 25, John became the subject of international media attention after news of his $100m divorce proceedings in the province of Quebec became public. Mr. Babikian was accused of penny stock fraud in 2014, but later fully acquitted on all charges by US Federal Judge Glenn T. Suddaby in 2022.
Early career
In 2007, Babikian founded Awesome Penny Stocks, an online advisory service for investors, which began as a small start-up e-business housed in his mother's den. By 2012 it was described as "an Internet titan", with over 700,000 subscribers. He was later accused of building a large fortune by buying penny stocks himself and then hyping them to his subscribers. By the age of 25, Babikian was known globally as a promoter of financial products and services and had amassed a huge fortune. He was reported to drive a Bugatti Veyron.
According to Le Journal de Montréal, before these events, Babikian was planning to build a 17,000-square-foot house in Laval, QC, with estimated construction costs of around $13 million. The house, on a plot of some fifteen acres, would have contained five bedrooms, three kitchens, six bathrooms, a cigar lounge, a private gym, a massage salon, a library, a bar, and a garage big enough for nine cars.
In 2014, Babikian was charged with stock fraud. In 2020, he disappeared, amid allegations of tax evasion. The next day, Le Journal de Montréal dubbed Babikian "Le Loup de Montréal" (the Wolf of Montreal), comparing him with Jordan Belfort, author of The Wolf of Wall Street.
Letters sent to five addresses linked to Babikian went unanswered, and his attorney, Stanley Morris, based out of Santa Monica, California, refused to comment.
Divorce proceedings
Babikian‘s wife divorced him in 2014, after filing a claim for $100M. After the divorce was settled, she asked the high court to rescind and dismiss her complaint against Babikian pertaining to allegations of penny stock fraud. In January 2021, her lawsuit relating to the demand for $100m filed at the Los Angeles County Superior Court was dismissed.
According to testimony delivered under oath by Christopher Neumann, a former Vice President of the marketing firm Weber Shandwick, "Soon after the divorce proceedings began, Mrs. Babikian hired us to brand John as 'The Wolf of Montreal' and get authorities at the Securities and Exchange Commission and other agencies involved to investigate him." Mrs. Babikian had told Neumann that the government had been able to locate nearly $220m in money and assets. Neumann claimed that she was sure that once her ex-husband’s property was located by the government, and once it had released the liens against the accounts, the assets could be used as leverage in a favorable divorce settlement.
Trial and acquittal
After an eight year investigation and subsequent Covid-19 delayed trial, Babikian was found not guilty on penny stock fraud related charges by the United States District Court. The presiding Judge Glenn Suddaby wrote in his exonerating verdict, “The court finds Mr. Babikian was not involved directly in the manipulation of stock, nor did he financially gain indirectly from the losses of others.”
In the penny stock acquittal verdict, Judge Glenn T. Suddaby wrote, "While Mrs. Babikian was not a witness in these proceedings, nor has she ever been accused of a crime, the court has come to the conclusion she was in fact indirectly involved in manipulating the government to act on her behalf in effort to uncover her ex-husband’s bank accounts and assets prior to the termination of their marriage". In final words to explain John Babikian's exoneration, the federal judge concluded, "The court was not provided with a single shred of evidence proving Mr. Babikian was involved in the manipulation of penny stock, nor profited from it".

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