And here is even more info for us GYMM Rats! Read it an weep. Gordon a father of eight.
HealthTech CEO, Broker to Testify in Mob on Wall Street Trial
New York, April 1 (Bloomberg) -- The chairman of HealthTech International Inc. and a stockbroker said today they will testify in their own defense in the first trial stemming from the government's prosecution of organized crime on Wall Street. ''We're going to testify. We have nothing to hide,'' HealthTech Chairman Gordon Hall said during a break in the second week of the racketeering and fraud trial against him and broker Michael Motsykulashvili. ''We did nothing wrong,'' Motsykulashvili said.
Hall and Motsykulashvili, a former broker at Meyers Pollock & Robbins in Long Island, New York, are charged with participating in a conspiracy to inflate HealthTech's stock price and sell the overpriced shares to unwitting investors.
Federal prosecutors in New York contend that the stock manipulation was an attempt by the Genovese and Bonanno organized crime families to enter the securities industry by bribing Meyers Pollock brokers to hype HealthTech and other penny stocks. A ring of 20 defendants made more than $1.3 million in illegal proceeds in 1997 by selling shares of HealthTech, a Mesa, Arizona- based health-club chain, prosecutors said.
Since authorities announced the arrests in November 1997, 14 people have pleaded guilty. They include four alleged members of the New York crime families and stock promoter Eugene Lombardo, an alleged associate of both families.
Hall, a 45-year-old father of eight from Mesa, and Motsykulashvili, a 26-year-old resident of Hicksville, New York, deny cheating investors or rubbing elbows with the mob.
Hall didn't know about the shady backgrounds of the people he hired in New York and Florida to promote his company's stock while he was busy running HealthTech from Arizona, according to his lawyer James McGuire.
Motsykulashvili, who is among the brokers charged with accepting bribes, says any compensation he received were brokerage commissions and legitimate payment for selling HealthTech stock, according to his lawyer, Barry Turner.
If convicted, Hall and Motsykulashvili could face 20 years in prison and fines.
The trial before U.S. District Judge Denny Chin in Manhattan is expected to last about three months.
The prosecution's key witness so far has been Irwin Schneider, 66, a disbarred lawyer and thrice-convicted felon who has admitted to organized crime ties and to a central role in the HealthTech fraud. Schneider said he advised the two stock promoters Hall hired, alleged mob associate Lombardo and Claudio Iodice -- on how to run the HealthTech scheme.
|
