“Most Gullible” Defendant Gets 9-Year Prison Sentence
Posted by Peter Lattman
August 16, 2006, 11:09 am
blogs.wsj.com
A federal judge in Manhattan slapped a former brokerage-firm executive, David Rutkoske, with a stiff nine-year prison sentence and ordered him to pay $12 million in restitution after he was convicted of a “boiler room” scheme, bilking hundreds of investors by manipulating an Internet gaming stock. Here’s the Reuters story.
The sentencing calculation centered around how much investors lost in the scam. Rutkoske’s lawyer, Ira Sorkin of Dickstein Shapiro, argued that his client was responsible for as little as $381,000 in losses. Prosecutor Joshua Levine said it was $12 million, an amount he claims was calculated quite conservatively.
“We are very upset about the length of the sentence and we intend to appeal sentencing calculations as well other issues that arose during and before the trial,” said Sorkin to Reuters.
Rutkoske pleaded for leniency at the sentencing hearing, saying he was sorry and asking not to be separated from his wife and 7-year-old twins. “It has emotionally ruined me, and it has financially obliterated me,” he said. And in the oddest detail in the AP story, he also told the judge that his Long Island high school senior class voted him Most Gullible. |
