Prominent Wall Street Figure Convicted of Fraud
Mon Jun 10, 2:24 PM ET
By Gail Appleson
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Prominent money manager Alan Bond, who appeared regularly on the television show "Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser," was convicted on Monday of fraud for cheating pension funds out of millions of dollars.
The Manhattan federal jury took less than an hour to return a guilty verdict on all six counts against Bond, 40, of Upper Montclair, New Jersey, who was president and chief investment officer of Albriond Capital Management.
U.S. District Judge Leonard Sand ordered that Bond be jailed immediately due to concerns he might try to flee. Sentencing was set for Sept. 9.
Bond, a Dartmouth College and Harvard Business School graduate, was one of a small number of African-Americans to rise to a top position in the lucrative world of money management. Bond is now indigent and was represented by a public defender. During the trial, he was free on bail secured by his parents' modest home in the New York City borough of Queens.
Bond's family broke into sobs after the verdict was read. U.S. marshals allowed Bond to hold his father in a lengthy embrace before he was led away.
Bond was convicted of three counts of investment advisory fraud, which carry a possible maximum prison term of 10 years each, and three counts of wire fraud, which carry a possible maximum term of five years each.
Mark Gombiner, Bond's defense lawyer, said he would appeal.
Bond was arrested last year and accused of defrauding clients by sending unprofitable securities trades to their accounts while directing most of the profitable ones to himself.
Prosecutors charged that Bond's "cherry-picking" scheme ran between March 2000 and July 2001 while Bond was out on bail awaiting trial on 1999 charges of taking more than $6 million in kickbacks from brokerage firms. He is scheduled to go to trial in November on the kickback charges.
They said Bond made $6.3 million from the cherry-picking scheme while his clients lost more than $56 million.
The victims of the cherry-picking scheme were Birmingham Amalgamated Transit Authority Local 725, a union pension fund; Chapman Capital Management, an investment adviser; and the Old Dominion Disability & Retirement Allowance Plan.
The government argued that the pension funds lost two-thirds of their value, while Bond received a 5,000 percent return on his own investments in a little over a year.
"The defense didn't really offer anything in Mr. Bond's defense," Tony Impieri, the jury foreman, told reporters after the verdict. "It was pretty clear cut."
He said that Bond only hurt himself by testifying during the trial.
"Prior to him taking the stand, I had reasonable doubt. The downfall was when he took the stand.... On cross-examination, he dodged every question, he could not give a straight answer." Impieri said.
Bond rose to prominence managing more than $600 million of pension and investment funds for about 25 clients, including the National Basketball Association, City University of New York and the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority.
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