Judge Fines Comparator Execs for Inflating Assets

Comparator Systems Corp.’s former chairman and another board member were ordered by a federal judge Thursday to pay almost $427,000 for allegedly helping the company inflate its assets from 1994 to 1996.

The stock of Irvine-based Comparator, which billed itself as a maker of fingerprint identification systems, soared 30-fold in May 1996 before collapsing.

Robert Reed Rogers, the former chairman and chief executive of the company, and Gregory Armijo, a former board member and vice president, were ordered by a federal judge in Los Angeles to surrender the money. Rogers was ordered to forfeit $297,496 in salary, prejudgment interest and profit from sale of Comparator stock. Armijo was told to repay $129,429.

Both had already been barred by the Securities and Exchange Commission from working as executives for public companies. The two could not be reached for comment.

Comparator’s market value rose to more than $1 billion in 1996 with virtually no assets or technology, the SEC alleged. Its stock soared from 6 cents a share to $1.88 in May 1996, in three days of record Nasdaq trading.

Since then, the stock has been trading at less than a penny a share in informal over-the-counter transactions between brokers and dealers.

The company, which had been dormant for months, with no paid employees or products, now develops a software-based digital fingerprint comparison system. In June, Comparator signed an agreement with another Irvine company, Tracker Technologies Inc., to build portable security devices.

The SEC also announced Thursday that the Los Angeles federal court in May ordered Scott Hitt, a former Comparator board member and executive vice president, to pay $1.1 million in fines and restitution. The court also barred him from working as an executive for a public company.

Hitt resides in Malaysia, according to the SEC complaint.