In the weeks before a penny-stock company was sanctioned by federal regulators over its alleged involvement in a sham coronavirus marketing scheme, its chief executive filed paperwork creating a new pro-Trump political action committee.
Barry Migliorini, who in his other capacity is a California women’s basketball coach, officially formed Help Keep America Great PAC on March 2, misspelling its name as “Help Keeep America Great” in its statement of organization with the Federal Election Commission. What exactly it’s done since then remains a mystery. The group missed its first filing deadline this month and has yet to disclose any of its finances to the FEC as required by law.
A month after Migliorini formed the PAC, the Securities and Exchange Commission suspended trading of his company, Wellness Matrix Group, over concerns that it was marketing fake test kits for the novel coronavirus. The company that manufactures the kits ostensibly offered by Migliorini’s company says it has no business relationship with WMG. It’s now suing his firm and Migliorini individually.
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Migliorini did not respond to questions about that lawsuit and its underlying allegations, or about Help Keep America Great PAC, its mission, and its failure to disclose financial information to the FEC.
In February, shortly before Migliorini formed his new PAC, one of his business associates, a man named George Todt, reached out to a Utah company called CoronaCide about its new coronavirus test kits. CoronaCide is waiting on the FDA to issue what’s called an “emergency use authorization” for those tests, but it’s permitted to distribute them to medical professionals in the interim.
Todt asked about acquiring some CoronaCide test kits, the company would later say in a federal lawsuit. CoronaCide said it looked into Todt’s background and discovered, through reporting by National Public Radio, that he’d been sued by the SEC over allegations of fraudulent “pump and dump” penny-stock schemes, and banned for life from promoting so-called pink-sheet securities.
CoronaCide decided not to do business with Todt or WMG. So it was surprised to discover soon thereafter that WMG websites, including one registered by Todt himself, were offering CoronaCide test kits—and not just to medical professionals, but to the general public for at-home testing, for which CoronaCide has never marketed its tests.
The company sued Migliorini, Todt, and WMG this month for trademark infringement. CoronaCide has also added a bright-red disclaimer to its website. “There are unscrupulous individuals and entities unlawfully and without permission linking to and/or using this website and images to represent that they have or can get / distribute CoronaCide’s Test Kits,” it says. It names a handful of offenders, starting with WMG.
By the time CoronaCide sued, WMG was already facing heat from the feds. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), who chairs a House investigative panel that oversees consumer-safety issues, sent a letter to Migliorini in late March with a list of probing questions about its coronavirus testing business.
That apparently got the attention of federal financial regulators. On April 8, the same day that CoronaCide filed its lawsuit, the SEC suspended trading in WMG stock. It cited “questions that have been raised about the accuracy and adequacy of information in the marketplace relating to WMGR common stock. Those questions relate to statements WMGR made through affiliated websites and a company consultant about selling at-home COVID-19 testing kits that had been approved by the FDA.”
PAY DIRT reached out to WMG shortly after the SEC’s announcement. A man answered, but refused to comment or identify himself.
"Why would I give you a name? You're a beast,” he said, referring to the name of this publication, The Daily Beast. “A beast twists and turns.”
Problematic financial reporting appears to be as much of an issue in Migliorini’s political endeavors as his business ones. Help Keep America Great PAC is actually the second pro-Trump group he’s founded. The first, Help Make America Great Again PAC, was formed in December 2017, and hasn’t filed a single financial report with the FEC since then, despite eight letters of inquiry from the commission.
Help Make America Great Again’s website didn’t provide much additional information either. An archived version of the site says “WE HELP SUPREME COURT TO GO CONSERVATIVE” and “PRESIDENT TRUMP MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN,” but offers little else in the way of a description of its activities.
Help Keep America Great PAC’s website is similarly vague. “Our goal is simple: to relentlessly pursue American excellence and advance President Trump’s agenda to Keep America Great,” it says. A page on the website rattles off a host of Trump-aligned agenda items but provides no details on what it’s actually doing to help advance those policies.
Migliorini, who also coaches a women’s college basketball team in Orange County, California, doesn’t appear to have made any federal political contributions to Trump or anyone else. That’s despite his ostensibly massive net worth, at least according to publicly reported figures that appear to be sourced entirely to Migliorini himself.
A local publication in Migliorini’s nearby hometown of Fountain Valley put out a list in 2018 of the city’s 25 wealthiest residents. Migliorini came in at No. 5 with an estimated net worth of $650 million. The publication sourced that number to WMG’s own SEC filings, but PAY DIRT could find no mention of the number in those filings. The article’s author didn’t respond to questions about it.
That statistic nevertheless appears on Migliorini’s Wikipedia page. Edit logs on the website show it was added by an anonymous Wikipedia user based in Buena Park, a local suburb where Migliorini went to high school. It remains the only edit that that user has ever made.
