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Published October 26, 2006 at 3:40 PM
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Just when you thought it was safe to walk the streets of America with crime at an all-time low: There's a new breed of crook who has invaded a street more and more Americans depend on — Wall Street. Let's take a look at some of these white-collar offenders:
- Robert Trosten, former chief financial officer of bankrupt broker Refco Inc., pleaded not guilty Oct. 25 to fraud charges, after prosecuters accused him of involvement in a scheme to hide $430 million in debt owed to Refco by a company controlled by Bennett, according to an indictment filed Oct. 24 in federal court in Manhattan. He also is accused of defrauding the purchasers of $600 million in notes sold by Refco in 2004. Trosten was released after posting a $10 million bond.
- David Finnerty, a trader at Fleet Specialist Inc., is on trial for three counts of securities fraud in a plan where he supposedly profited $4.5 million in illegal profit by cheating customers in 26,000 improper trades. The government charged Finnerty and 14 other former specialists, or floor traders, at the New York Stock Exchange with fraud in April 2005 for breaking securities law by trading ahead of — or in between — customer orders, generating millions in illegal profits between January 1999 and April 2003.
- Rose Magpantay Valdez, bank manager of Silicon Valley Bank of San Jose, Calif., was sentenced Oct. 25 to 33 months in federal prison. She pleaded guilty for embezzling more than $1.1 million dollars during a 10-year period. Valdez stole funds by filling out debit and credit slips that reflected that monies were being transferred from one general ledger account to another pursuant to bank business. She would then illegibly write fake names on the slips, initial the slips, and submit them to another authorized bank employee to approve and initial. The employee would return the slips to Valdez, who would replace the deposit slips with her own slips in the same dollar amount. Valdez admitted to using odd dollar amounts so as not to arouse suspicion. She would then deposit the monies into her own personal Silicon Valley Bank account.
See article from Reuters via The New York Times
See Article from Reuters via CNN Money
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