For YHOO and RB lurkers: More on Hanover Sterling, USWC's undertaker from Business Week: "Sources on Wall Street say that Malangone was a behind- the-scenes player in the biggest penny-stock
fiasco of recent years: Hanover Sterling. According to sources, Malangone controlled Hanover through
his right-hand man, Alan Longo, who has been identified by federal authorities in court filings as a member
of the Genovese family. Longo, who is described by acquaintances as a heavy gambler, is said by sources
to have worked directly with Ageloff in Hanover and other market ventures.
Ageloff--in concert with his alleged Mob contacts--is believed by market sources to have been the hidden
control person at Hanover. It went out of business in early 1995 and resulted in the demise of the firm that
it cleared through, Adler, Coleman & Co. An attorney for the trustee in the Adler Coleman bankruptcy,
Mitchell A. Lowenthal, says that his firm, Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, has discovered evidence
that 65% of Hanover's profits were shared by Ageloff and another Hanover official. Efforts to reach
Hanover execs were unsuccessful.
Street sources say that the Mob was involved in both sides of the Hanover-Adler imbroglio. The
Malangone-Longo-Ageloff faction, they say, profited from the runup in Hanover stocks, while other
mobsters allegedly sold short the Hanover stocks and pushed their prices downward- -to the chagrin of
the Malangone faction. This internecine dispute, sources close to Hanover say, was eventually resolved
without bloodshed, but only after some tense meetings between Mob factions. Lowenthal says that his
firm's investigation has shown that ``Ageloff and some of the shorts were all connected [to the Mob] in one
way or the other, ' but nothing was proven.
According to people close to the Hanover Sterling machinations, the Mob was represented on the short
side through Falcon Trading Group and Sovereign Equity Management Corp. And those brokerages,
sources say, are controlled by the alleged SC&T profiteer--a silver-haired, 51-year-old resident of
northern New Jersey named Philip C. Abramo.
Abramo's name has never surfaced in any of the thousands of pages of deposition testimony taken by the
adversaries in the Hanover-Adler Coleman legal warfare. Nor have his recent legal troubles--a federal
fraud indictment-- resulted in exposure of his Street ties or alleged Mob membership. Abramo's stunning
success at avoiding publicity has helped make him the most active reputed Mob honcho on Wall Street.
``He is educated. He sounds sincere,' says one source. ``He's gotten all these wiseguys to work together.' |
