Former A.S. Goldmen CFO arrested in murder-for-hire plot
Stuart Winkler is accused of hiring a hit man to kill the judge set to preside over the Goldmen stock fraud case
Thursday, August 10, 2000
By GINA EDWARDS, Staff Writer
Plotting from a Manhattan jail cell, A.S. Goldmen & Co.'s former chief financial officer hired a hit man to kill the judge scheduled to preside over the brokerage's $100-million stock fraud case, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Stuart Winkler of Marlboro, N.J., is charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder for plotting to kill Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Leslie Crocker Snyder. Snyder, known for her tough sentencing and high-profile cases, wasn't harmed.
Winkler was the right-hand man of Anthony Marchiano, the Naples millionaire owner of A.S. Goldmen who is charged with running a corrupt enterprise that swindled customers out of $100 million in multiple penny stock boiler room scams.
In April, Snyder increased Winkler's bail and sent him to jail with a requirement that he post a full $1 million on his pending stock fraud charges.
Prosecutors with Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau's Office say Winkler wanted Snyder off the case in hopes that another judge might give more favorable rulings and lenient bail conditions.
The murder-for-hire plot is the latest twist in the mob-tinged case that's set for trial in January.
Prosecutors gave this account Wednesday of Winkler's plot to kill Snyder:
Although Winkler's assets are frozen, for Christmas vacation he chartered a private plane to take family and friends to the Cayman Islands. Alarmed by the foreign travel, prosecutors asked Snyder to increase Winkler's bail conditions.
Snyder required Winkler to post a full $1 million. Winkler's bail bondsman backed out. So Snyder sent Winkler to a Manhattan jail, where he's been since April.
While in jail, Winkler contracted with another inmate to kill Snyder after the inmate's release. Payment - prosecutors didn't specify the amount - was to be made by a Winkler-affiliated company through an intermediary.
Caught on a tape on a wire worn by the inmate, Winkler commanded:
"Do it. It's a done deal. Don't worry about it. Just don't get (expletive) caught."
Winkler set up a coded message so he could control the timing of the hit. For example, Winkler told the hit man that if by chance Snyder planned to let him out jail, he didn't want her dead before she could grant a release.
Prosecutors say Winkler supplied the hit man with information about security arrangements near Snyder's courtroom and when she would go on vacation.
The plot began June 1 and continued until recently.
Winkler also told the hit man on tape: "Don't do it around here. . .There's too many police. . .too many corrections officers."
At another point on tape, Winkler says: "The kids who do it for the mob are trying to make their bones."
That's mob lingo for earning stripes in a mob family.
Prosecutors used that tape excerpt in an argument that Winkler not be allowed future outside contact with anyone but his lawyer.
If convicted of the murder-for-hire charge, Winkler, 47, could face 25 years in prison in addition to 25 years on the racketeering charge in the stock fraud case. He pleaded innocent to the murder-for-hire charge at his arraignment before Judge Arlene Goldberg on Wednesday.
Prosecutors say in court filings that they've detailed organized crime connections to A.S. Goldmen in secret court papers given to Snyder. In an effort to get charges thrown out, Goldmen defense attorneys claim prosecutors unfairly tainted grand jury proceedings with unfair suggestions of A.S. Goldmen mob ties.
What relationship A.S. Goldmen had with the mob isn't clear; prosecutors haven't made it explicit. But what is clear is that numerous mob-linked brokers - including a convicted Gambino family ringleader who once dangled a competitor out a ninth-floor window after leaving Goldmen - have cycled in and out of A.S. Goldmen over the years.
Marchiano's attorney has told the Naples Daily News that his client is a victim of mob extortionists.
In October, a former Goldmen broker and his business partner were executed gangland-style in a Colts Neck, N.J., mansion that neighbors the towns where Winkler and four other indicted Goldmen brokers live. The killings remain unsolved.
So far, 36 defendants - 11 of them from Goldmen's Naples office including Marchiano's wife, Maria - have been indicted in the stock fraud case. The Marchianos deny wrongdoing.
On Wednesday, Winkler was being held without bail in isolation at the Brooklyn House of Detention.
Winkler's attorney, Jack Littman, argued in court that his client should be allowed to talk to his wife of 20 years and three children, ages 17, 14, and 11.
Judge Goldberg ordered that Winkler's calls with his wife and kids be monitored on Winkler's end by a corrections officer.
What legal ramifications Winkler's alleged murder-for-hire plot will have on the Goldmen case is uncertain. A number of the defendants are set to be tried simultaneously, and many have joined together in defense motions.
Defendants in the Goldmen case are accused of committing crimes in nearly all facets of the industry.
Marchiano and Winkler were both charged with racketeering in July 1999 for running boiler rooms at various times in Naples, New Jersey and New York.
Crews of fast-talking brokers hyped small company stocks - including those tied to the failed Stadium Naples golf arena - in so-called "pump and dump" schemes, prosecutors say.
Once stocks were driven high enough, insiders sold at huge profits. The stocks tanked and wiped out unwitting investors, prosecutors say.
Winkler, a former industry regulator with the National Association of Securities Dealers, helped conceal fraud at Goldmen using his knowledge of regulatory techniques, prosecutors say.
Morgenthau's chief of investigations, Dan Castleman, said Wednesday that prosecutors are reviewing legal requirements and perceptions about whether Snyder can properly continue to sit on Winkler's case.
It may be that Winkler's case is severed from other Goldmen defendants or that Snyder be required to step down from the Goldmen trial altogether.
"We're looking at the legal requirements," Castleman said.
Thousands of pages of motions and documents have already been reviewed by Snyder in the complex Goldmen case. Snyder sealed court files in October after prosecutors expressed concern for witnesses' safety.
Goldmen defense attorneys fingered two Naples men as potential witnesses in court papers obtained by the Naples Daily News. The newspaper did not publish the men's names, based on the prosecution's assertions about the danger. Snyder later unsealed the files after reprimanding Marchiano's defense attorney.
The next hearing in the Goldmen case is set for Sept. 22. The trial is set for Jan. 3.
Snyder, who has presided over some of New York City's most violent drug gang cases, is no stranger to death threats. She was threatened in the early 1990s while presiding over the drug trial of the so-called "Wild Cowboys." Snyder also presided over the so-called "carting" case that led to reform of New York's garbage hauling industry.
Court officers are permanently stationed outside Snyder's 13th-floor courtroom in the lower Manhattan courthouse. Officers wave security wands over all those who want to enter.
Castleman wouldn't say what stepped-up security measures have been put in place since prosecutors learned of Winkler's plot against Snyder.
"We're working closely with the police department to continue to ensure her safety," Castleman said. "We take threats very seriously."
Correspondent Jeanne King in New York contributed to this report.
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