Do I see the words FRAUD and CONVICTION in this news story?
" LOS ANGELES, July 31 — An investment firm co-founded by Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon was ordered Wednesday to pay $65 million to a businessman who claimed that it and another company drove his firm into bankruptcy.
A LOS ANGELES County Superior Court jury returned a $65 million award for punitive damages against Simon’s family firm, William E. Simon & Sons. It added a $10 million judgment against the second firm, run by investment manager William Rogers.
William E. Simon & Sons was started by Simon, his brother and his father, former U.S. Treasury Secretary William E. Simon. Bill Simon faces Democratic Gov. Gray Davis in the November election.
A day earlier, the jury found the firms guilty of fraud, breach of fiduciary duty and other claims and awarded $22.2 million in actual damages to Edward Hindelang Jr. and his company, Pacific Coin Management Inc., which made and distributed pay telephones.
Pacific Coin was taken over by creditors in 2000 after Simon & Sons saddled the company with $100 million in debt in a failed attempt at an initial public stock offering, said Hindelang’s attorney, Jason Frank.
“Defendants steered Pacific Coin from one disastrous transaction to another solely for defendants’ benefit,” the suit said.
Simon, who was not personally named in the suit and is on a leave from his post as co-chairman for his gubernatorial run, called the judgment “fundamentally flawed” and said he expected to win on appeal. |
