November 19, 1999 U.S. Seeks Trading Accounts of
Murdered Stock Promoter
By LESLIE EATON and DAVID BARBOZA
[I]nvestigators are examining whether there
is a link between the deaths of two stock promoters
found shot in a New Jersey home last month and an
account one of the men may have had at a small
Manhattan stock trading firm that recently closed its
doors.
Federal prosecutors investigating the killings
served subpoenas last week on Harbor Securities,
seeking records that may indicate whether Albert Alain
Chalem had been trading there. Chalem was killed the
evening of Oct. 25 in his home in Colts Neck, N.J.,
along with Maier Lehmann, his partner in a Web site
that promoted stocks.
According to several people who have worked at
Harbor, Chalem had been trading from home under an
assumed name and had lost a lot of money, some of which
belonged to other people.
But in an interview earlier this month, Warren
Sulmasy, Harbor's president, denied that Chalem had had
an account or any other business relationship with the
firm. He has not returned telephone calls this week.
Asked about Chalem and the subpoenas, Thomas J.
McCabe, a lawyer for Sulmasy, would say only that
Harbor is out of business. The firm, at 5 Hanover
Square in Lower Manhattan, had catered to the
self-employed speculators known as day traders.
Investigators are now analyzing the trading and
business records of an account at Harbor to see if they
can tie it to Chalem. Among the links is that the
mailing address for the account was in Fort Lauderdale,
Fla., where Chalem had a second home.
Moreover, at least one small stock that had
been traded in the account had been recommended on
Chalem's Web site, stockinvestor.com. Chalem was also
known to have been involved in the formation of another
tiny company whose stock was traded in the account last
spring.
The account had losses of about $800,000 in
April, according to people who have seen the firm's
trading records, and money was later moved out of the
account.
Investigators are examining whether Chalem had
secret accounts at several brokerage firms.
Whether or not Chalem turns out to have traded
at Harbor, the firm had troubles of its own. In
October, it had suffered a big trading loss unrelated
to Chalem that put it in violation of regulations on
financial soundness.
Regulators, who briefly closed Harbor because
of financial concerns late last month, continue to
investigate the firm's financial affairs.
"As soon as we discovered a problem, we
effectively suspended trading for 48 hours and sent in
an auditor," said Meyer Frucher, chairman of the
Philadelphia Stock Exchange, where Harbor was a member.
A larger Wall Street firm that had agreed to
back Harbor's trades also became concerned and, after
examining Harbor's books, withdrew its support, forcing
Harbor to close its doors.
--------------------
Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company |
