NEW YORK (AP) — A day trader stole the identities of four people, made off with $1 million from their bank accounts, and then used the funds in a stock scheme, according to an indictment Friday in state Supreme Court.

Alexis Ampudia Jr., 22, of Brooklyn, opened online stock trading accounts in the victims’ names, Manhattan prosecutors charged. He also opened online trading accounts in his own name and bought lightly traded, low-value securities, prosecutors said. Ampudia then used accounts he had opened in his victims’ names to buy the same stocks, which inflated the price by artificially creating demand, prosecutors said. After the stock prices rose due to his manipulations of the market, Ampudia dumped the stock at a profit, according to prosecutors. Accounts in the victims’ names held nearly worthless stocks, after the artificially inflated prices fell, the indictment claims.

Ampudia is charged with stealing $730,750, attempting to steal an additional $100,000 and illegally transferring, through identity theft, another $184,000, prosecutors said. He is charged with second-degree grand larceny, second-degree attempted grand larceny and first-degree identity theft. The grand larceny charge, the top count in the indictment, is punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Ampudia, who was jailed in Newark, N.J., April 5 as he returned from his native Panama, is expected to be arraigned June 6 in Manhattan’s state Supreme Court. His lawyer, Stephen Drummond, said his client will plead not guilty when he is arraigned. Drummond said Ampudia, a day trader since 2003, was asked by the alleged victims to trade securities for them. The lawyer said the alleged victims, all of whom had identification, were sent by another man he believes should be investigated. “I absolutely believe this young man is not guilty,” the lawyer said of his client. “I believe he was manipulated by someone who is much cleverer.”