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To: StocksDATsoar who wrote (71)	6/14/2000 3:29:00 PM
From: Marty Rubin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 98

Reuters, June 14, 12PM: "Largest securities case involves 5 mob families" Wednesday June 14, 12:00 pm Eastern Time Largest securities case involves 5 mob families (UPDATE: New throughout) By Gail Appleson, Law Correspondent NEW YORK, June 14 (Reuters) - Members of five organised crime families, two chain restaurant officers and a long list of brokers were charged on Wednesday in a mammoth securities fraud case demonstrating the mob's determination to infiltrate Wall Street. Federal authorities said 120 people, including a vice chairman and the chief executive officer of the Ranch1 fast food chain, were charged for their alleged roles in wide-ranging nationwide stock fraud schemes that caused losses of more than $50 million. Prosecutors said many of the defendants are in custody, marking the largest number of people ever arrested at one time on securities fraud related charges and one of the largest number ever arrested in a criminal case of any kind. In coordination with the arrests in the New York area, search warrants were executed in Dallas and Salt Lake City, Utah. The defendants were named in 16 indictments and seven criminal complaints unsealed in Manhattan federal court. The securities fraud charges involve publicly traded stock of 19 companies and the private placement of securities of 16 other companies including Ranch1. Among the defendants are Sebastian Rametta, chief executive officer, and James Chickara, vice chairman, of the Ranch*1 fast food chain, who are alleged in the court papers to be associates of the Colombo crime family. The long list of defendants also include a former New York Police Department detective, 57 licensed and unlicensed stock brokers, 30 officers or other ``insiders'' of companies issuing securities involved in the fraud, an investment adviser and a hedge fund manager. Among the defendants are Frank Persico, an alleged associate of the Colombo crime family and a registered stock broker who controlled crews of brokers at various brokerage firms including First Liberty Investment Group, Inc.; and Gene Phillips, who controlled Basic Capital Management, the investment adviser to American Realty Trust (NYSE:ARB - news), a New York Stock Exchange-listed real estate investment trust or REIT. Another defendant is William Stephens, the chief investment strategist of Husic Capital Managemnet, a San Francisco-based investment advisor who allegedly agreed to manage up to $300 million in union pension funds knowing that a portion would be invested in corrupt deals aimed at funding kickbacks to certain defendants and corrupt union officials. The court papers accuse 21 of the defendants of participating in a racketeering enterprise consisting of members and associates of the Bonanno and Colombo organised crime families in the New York City area. The enterprise allegedly carried out massive securities fraud over a five-year period by forging corrupt alliances with members of three other New York City mob families, controlling and infiltrating broker-dealers, conspiring with issuers of securities and individual stock brokers, scheming to defraud union pension plans and using violence including solicitation of murder. The charges describe a wide array of stock market schemes designed to fleece investors. Sales of stock in private placements are alleged to have been fraudulently rigged for the benefit of insiders and corrupt brokers. The Internet was allegedly used to further these schemes through fraudulent promotion of stocks on websites and the use of companies that were touted as Internet or ``dot-com'' companies in order to induce investors to capitalise on the Internet boom. Copyright ¸ 2000 Yahoo! All Rights Reserved. Copyright 2000 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. biz.yahoo.com _______ Email this story to a friend (http://news.yahoo.com/mailto?url=http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/000614/n14127354.html&title=Largest%20securities%20case%20involves%205%20mob%20families&prop=finance&locale=us). Don't let these crimes go on, thank to a breed of new investors who "think" they know what they are doing.