Three Notorious (Recent) Cases of Wire Fraud Wire fraud is the act of fraud used in electronic communication. That’s simple. Easy to understand. The American Supreme Court mucked things up — for the laymen — when they “several times observed the wire fraud statute has a long arm.,” Pasquantino v. United States. Despite the Court’s […]
READ MOREJustice Department to Take a Tougher Stance on White Collar Crime
Employees of investment firms and professionals throughout New York City need to take note of a new possible threat: the Justice Department has announced new policies prioritizing the prosecution of employees for corporate wrongdoing. The Department of Justice (DOJ) is taking action to become more aggressive in prosecuting individual employees after years of criticism that […]
READ MOREFort Lauderdale Attorney Scott Rothstein Pleads Not Guilty to Information Alleging $1.2 Billion Dollar Ponzi Scheme
In response to allegations uncomfortably similar to those against former New York celebrity lawyer and arch Ponzi-schemer Marc Dreier, Fort Lauderdale attorney Scott Rothstein, head of Rothstein, Rosenfeldt and Adler, P.A., appeared in response to a criminal information in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida on Tuesday. The information charges Rothstein […]
READ MOREMost Investors Do Not Know How to Recognize Investment Fraud
Investors who fall victim to investment fraud could face significant financial loss. Litigation provides recourse to investment fraud victims, but often shareholders and investors do not detect problems with the company they have invested in until the company is bankrupt or in serious financial trouble. A bankrupt company has limited or no assets to pay […]
READ MOREAn Illegal Ponzi Scheme Leads to 13-Years in Prison
A Ponzi scheme is a scheme in which unrealistically high rates of return are promised to investors. When new investors are lured by these promises and provide their funds to a money manager or financial advisor, money that the new investors pay in is used to enrich the person orchestrating the fraud scheme as well […]
READ MORELimits on Fiduciary Duties: Wherefore Art Thou?
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, recently decided a fraud case holding that a person may commit federal fraud and face imprisonment for breaching a broadly-defined fiduciary duty to a contractual business partner. This holding arises under the “honest services” fraud statute, presuming the breaching party also has a specific intent to […]
READ MORESEC Charges Former NAPFA President with Kickback Scheme
On May 20, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged James Putman the top executive at Wealth Management, LLC, an Appleton, Wisc.-based investment advisor, who was past president of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors, with accepting $2 million in kickbacks on client investment pools. The company’s former president and chief investment officer, Simone Fevola, […]
READ MOREDumping and suing
Moin Yahya has posted The Legal Status of Dump and Sue. Here’s the abstract: There is some evidence that plaintiffs and their attorneys are profitably short-selling the stock of the companies they intend to sue. The status of such short sales is undecided in the law. Lawsuits against companies can cause large drops in market […]
READ MOREFama, Thaler and the ordinary investor
Today’s WSJ summarizes the debate between Thaler, a leading skeptic of market efficiency, and Fama, the leading defending of the efficient capital markets hypothesis. As the article notes, the debate could have implications for privatizing social security. It quotes Thaler as saying, “[i]f you give people 456 mutual funds to choose from, they’re not going […]
READ MORENEW YORK CRIME TRENDS Index Crime in New York State: 1994 – 2001
New York City Index Offenses Reported to Police: 1994-2001 Counts 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 Index Total 530,827 442,532 383,603 356,573 323,441 299,522 287,995 263,764 Index rate per 100,000 7,235.7 6,045.9 5,226.5 4,807.9 4,395.9 4,031.7 3,717.7 3,287.6 Violent Total 136,571 114,180 98,728 92,866 85,915 78,983 75,739 68,274 Violent rate per 100,000 1,861.6 […]
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