SAY IT AIN'T SO !!
Thursday June 17, 1:19 pm Eastern Time
CORRECTED - Eighty-five brokers indicted in N.Y.
In June 16 NEW YORK story headlined ''Eighty-nine brokers indicted in
N.Y. for stock scheme,'' please read figure in headline, first paragraph
and seventh paragraph as 85 instead of 89 (corrects number of brokers
indicted).
A corrected version follows.
By David Martin
NEW YORK, June 16 (Reuters) - Eighty-five stock brokers were indicted on
racketeering charges on Wednesday, accused of swindling thousands of
investors out of millions of dollars by manipulating stock prices,
federal prosecutors said.
Prosecutors at a news conference at the U.S. Attorney's Office in
Brooklyn said the men would convince unsuspecting investors to buy
cheap, so-called bulletin board stocks, drive up the price, cash out and
leave the investors with nearly worthless holdings,
Two defendants, Dominick Dionifio and Enrico LoCasio, were identified as
associates in the Colombo organized crime family, while a third, Yakov
Slavin, was identified as an associate of Russian organized crime,
prosecutors said.
''A number of these defendants have ties to the mob and, if there's
money in it, they're in it. The mob never saw a market it didn't want to
control,'' Louis Schiliro, assistant director in charge of the FBI in
New York, said.
The brokers -- most of whom were not actually registered brokers and
some had had their licenses revoked -- would lure customers to open
accounts by referring to well-known, profitable stocks but then switch
their money into risky low-priced stocks, prosecutors said.
Once the prices of the cheap stocks were inflated, they would sell off
their own shares, making money for themselves and leaving the stocks
essentially valueless, officials said.
The 85 defendants operated through 11 firms, among them First National
Equity Corp. of New Jersey, Three Arrows of New York, JS Securities and
Pacific International, based in Vancouver, Canada, authorities said.
All of the defendants were charged with racketeering and money
laundering. The stiffest count carries a possible sentence of up to 20
years in prison.
The most massive of the schemes was carried out over an eight-year
period, prosecutors said.
One broker, Robert Catoggio, had previously been barred from the
securities industry by the Securities and Exchange Commission but had
continued to work as a broker, prosecutors said. Another, Thomas
Boccieri, had been a SEC lawyer in the 1970s, they said.
Fifteen defendants have entered guilty pleas, including Boccieri, who
pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud.
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Pacific International, based in Vancouver, Canada, really ? |
