Re: 3/18/00 - A.S. Goldmen: Ex-stockbroker extradited to answer charges
A.S. Goldmen: Ex-stockbroker extradited to answer charges
Saturday, March 18, 2000
By GINA EDWARDS, Staff Writer
It took eight months and help from New Scotland Yard to do it.
But Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau didn't let the Atlantic Ocean and a morass of international bureaucracy stop him from hauling a former Naples stockbroker into court as part of his ongoing fraud probe of the defunct Naples brokerage A.S. Goldmen & Co.
Christopher Brand, a 33-year-old British citizen, appeared in a Manhattan court Friday after crossing the Atlantic to answer charges he swindled investors while hyping the failed Stadium Naples golf arena during his stint as a broker at Goldmen's Naples office.
Brand's court appearance comes eight months after a grand jury indicted him and Morgenthau initiated an extradition proceeding that required help from the U.S. Justice Department, State Department and British authorities.
Brand, a resident of Swindon, England, didn't have an attorney and is being held in custody until his arraignment Tuesday.
In July, a Manhattan grand jury indicted A.S. Goldmen owner Anthony Marchiano, a Gordon Drive resident, and 32 others, charging them with a range of securities crimes.
A total of 11 employees of Goldmen's Naples office have now been charged as part of the New York case. Two Naples brokers were charged in 1998.
Prosecutors say Marchiano ran a corrupt enterprise that bilked thousands of investors out of nearly $100 million. If convicted of enterprise corruption under New York's Organized Crime and Control Act, Marchiano could face up to 25 years in prison.
Prosecutors say A.S. Goldmen held itself out as a legitimate firm, but systematically broke securities laws and regulations to steal from unsuspecting customers. The firm is accused of manipulating the stocks of 10 small companies, among them Millennium Sports Management Inc., a partner in Stadium Naples.
Marchiano, 38, has denied wrongdoing. He's expected to go on trial in the fall.
Here's how prosecutors say the fraud worked:
A.S. Goldmen acquired millions of shares of Millennium Sports Management Inc. at a cut-rate price. The firm's boiler room of brokers and cold callers then made gross misrepresentations to customers about the golf stadium to hype Millennium stock and sell shares to unwitting customers.
For example, prosecutors say some brokers told telephone customers they could see the North Naples golf stadium under construction from their Fifth Avenue South office. In fact, Stadium Naples - touted as a spectator arena for golf and slated for land next to Interstate 75 - never got off the ground. At the time, Stadium Naples had collapsed once before and was the subject of a bribery investigation involving a Collier County commissioner.
Goldmen brokers didn't tell customers that New Jersey-based Millennium had once filed for bankruptcy reorganization and was in danger of failing. All the while, brokers made exorbitant commissions on the stock.
In Brand's case, prosecutors say he started as a cold caller at A.S. Goldmen in July 1997 and eventually worked his way up to a position as a licensed broker. He left Goldmen in April 1998.
Prosecutors say Brand cold-called one of his victims - a 75-year-old widower from Long Island, N.Y., who lives on a fixed income - on Oct. 7, 1997, and touted Millennium's partnership interest in Stadium Naples. That call falls before Millennium's public announcement about its Stadium Naples partnership.
Brand then turned the victim over to his broker colleague who sold him more than $100,000 of Millennium stock, which traded on the NASDAQ under the symbol MSPT, over the next several months, prosecutors say. Today the stock is virtually worthless.
Prosecutors say Brand's other victims include a Brooklyn resident who received relentless phone calls and eventually bought $2,480 worth of Millennium. Brand also lied to a Georgia resident who eventually bought $10,000 worth of Millennium stock from another broker, prosecutors say.
Brand is charged with one count of grand larceny, punishable upon conviction by up to seven years in prison, and five counts of securities fraud, punishable upon conviction by up to four years in prison. He is also charged with attempted grand larceny.
In June, federal prosecutors in Tampa reopened a bribery investigation of Stadium Naples at the request of Gov. Jeb Bush.
Collier Commissioner John Norris has been charged with civil influence-peddling charges by a state ethics panel in connection with his no-money-down stake in Stadium Naples. Norris denies wrongdoing and plans to fight those allegations at a May hearing.
Copyright ¸ 2000 Naples Daily News. All rights reserved.
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