Farmer got shares for chewing cud

“Bad boy” of Wall Street Ross Mandell gave a farmer 60,000 shares of his now-defunct brokerage company in exchange for tips on fertilizing his yard, a witness and alleged victim testified yesterday.

Mark Halper, a farmer from New Jersey, said he received the shares after he threatened to walk away from Mandell’s Sky Capital after losing as much as $300,000 in three private investments that flopped.

One of the investments, a candy maker called Lisa’s Incredible Edibles, with the distasteful acronym, LIE, particularly irked Halper because, “It’s not exactly rocket science to make candy,” the third-generation farmer, who specializes in making mulch, told the Manhattan federal court jury.

Mandell and one of his former employees, Adam Harrington, are on trial for allegedly conning people into investing in sham companies and spending some of the proceeds on watches, hookers and at jiggle joints.

To appease Halper, his broker, Arn Wilson, offered him 60,000 shares of Sky Capital Holdings, the brokerage’s parent company. To make the transaction “look kosher,” Halper was asked to sign a consulting agreement showing that the stock was payment for “certain duties and tasks.”

But when Halper went to see Mandell about fulfilling his side of the bargain, Mandell “resisted” his efforts and only asked about mulch, the witness said.

“You may consider me a farmer or less, but there are certain things I know,” he said. “He kind of in a way laughed at me and proceeded to talk about mulch.”

Mandell’s lawyer, Jeffrey Hoffman, questioned Halper about why he chose to not recoup his losses by selling Sky Capital’s stock.

Halper said he was hoping the stock, which he had priced at around $1.20 a share, would someday be worth more.