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To: Cheesehead who wrote (17303)	12/17/1999 8:35:00 AM
From: Mr Metals	Respond to of 150070

Thursday December 16, 7:05 pm Eastern Time FOCUS - Fund manager indicted in kickback scheme (Recasts, adds defense and SEC lawyers' comments, details) NEW YORK, Dec 16 (Reuters) - A prominent New York pension fund manager has been indicted on charges of taking more than $6 million in kickbacks of commissions paid to brokerage firms where he steered clients, including the National Basketball Association. Alan Bond, president and chief investment officer of Albriond Capital Management, formerly known as Bond Procope Capital Management, was indicted by a Manhattan federal grand jury on Wednesday on 11 counts of conspiracy, fraud, bribery and making false statements. Bond, 38, of Upper Montclair, N.J. was also sued in a related civil case filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC alleged that the Harvard-educated Bond, who is a frequent guest on PBS' 'Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser,' used the kickbacks to buy more than 75 luxury and antique cars, a large home and beachfront condominium in Florida, and on shopping sprees at Saks Fifth Avenue and Tiffany & Co. The alleged victims of the scheme include the NBA's pension plan, the retirement funds of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, and the Ohio Police and Fireman's Disability Pension Board. John Siffert, Bond's lawyer, said his client plans to plead not guilty to the charges. 'We expect him to be vindicated.' The SEC said Bond had about 25 clients and more than $600 million under management. The clients were mostly union and government pension funds, with the Washington transit fund being the largest. 'Although Mr. Bond's clients were mostly pension funds, the victims are human. Mr. Bond's scheme affected the life savings and financial security of thousands of working people, such as police officers, fire fighters, teachers and bus drivers,' said Valeri Caproni, director of the SEC's Pacific region based in Los Angeles. The Pacific office developed the civil case filed in Manhattan federal court. Robert Spruill, 52, of Newark, N.J., formerly a broker with the Manhattan brokerage firms of Brenner Securities and Lintz Glover White & Co., and the Connecticut brokerage firm Value Investing Partners, also was named as a defendant in the SEC's civil case and in a separate criminal case. The charges allege that between the middle of 1996 and late 1998, Bond used his discretionary control of his clients' accounts to direct millions of dollars of the clients' brokerage business to Lintz Glover and Value Investing Partners. Spruill then allegedly caused a substantial portion of those commission revenues to be unlawfully transferred to Bond. These kickbacks were allegedly made through payments to Bond's credit cards and bank accounts and were used to support Bond's lavish lifestyle, prosecutors said. It also was alleged that between late 1993 and the middle of 1996, Bond misused hundreds of thousands of dollars of 'soft dollar' credits belonging to Procope's clients. Soft dollar credits are partial rebates of commissions paid to brokerages for executing purchases and sales of securities. Under the law, investment advisors may use soft dollar credits generated from trades for their clients to buy research information and services benefitting their clients. Bond allegedly diverted these credits to his own use by submitting his own credit card bills and other personal and business expenses to the Brenner brokerage and instructing it to pay these expenses with the soft dollar credits paid for by Procope clients.