<<<<riday July 31, 8:46 pm Eastern Time
Former U.S Treasury official Eggers guilty of fraud
NEW YORK, July 31 (Reuters) - Paul Eggers, the U.S. Treasury Department general counsel under President Richard Nixon
and two-time Republican candidate for Texas governor, was convicted of fraud and conspiracy Friday by a Manhattan federal
jury.
Eggers, 79, was convicted after a four-week trial on all four counts of an indictment that charged him with conspiracy, wire
fraud and securities fraud. The jury voted unanimously for conviction after a single day of deliberations.
The U.S. Attorney's office said Eggers, with a partner, had created a fictitious ''high-yield investment program'' and
fraudulently solicited $7.9 million in investments in the program within three months in 1997.
Attorneys for Eggers could not be immediately reached for comment.
Three co-defendants were also convicted, including Garland Lincecum, Eggers' partner in creating Dallas-based Eggers &
Lincecum High Yield Investment Program. The other defendants were brokers in California who solicited investments for the
program.
Eggers and Lincecum told investors the program would generate huge profits through secret trading in bank obligations
supposedly issued by the top 25 western European banks, the U.S. Attorney said.
The partners allegedly guaranteed the investments by claiming funds would not be moved into the trading program unless the
firm received a guarantee, by a ''prime European bank,'' that investors would recoup 106 percent of their investment even if
the trade was unsuccessful.
They also claimed their investment program had been approved by the Federal Reserve and the International Monetary Fund,
the Attorney's office said.
In fact, there are no such bank obligations and no secret trading in them, the U.S. Attorney said, and no such approvals were
ever issued.
The Eggers & Lincecum funds were seized by the Secret Service April 30, 1997 from Eggers' account at Dean Witter in New
York. A court trustee will evaluate investors' claims for return of their funds.
Eggers ran unsuccessfully for governor of Texas in 1968 and 1970.
He will be sentenced December 21 before Judge Lewis Kaplan in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. He and his co-defendants
each face up to five years in prison and $1 million in fines on each of the four counts against them
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