A United States grand jury has indicted the New York lawyer Marc Dreier on charges of securities fraud over an alleged investment scheme said to have left a number of funds with losses of over $400 million.
The indictment claims that Mr Dreier, the founder of the 250-strong Dreier LLP, conspired over four years in an elaborate scheme to sell fraudulent debt securities purporting to be from a Manhattan real estate firm to a number of hedge funds.
As part of the scheme, the lawyer is accused of impersonating or having associates impersonate officers of the "issuers" of the fake notes, Reuters reports.
Last week, a judge ordered that the Harvard Law graduate find four responsible people to guarantee his $20 million bail bond, but Mr Dreier was only able to find two - his mother and 19-year-old son. He has therefore remained in jail, the news service said.
Speaking at that hearing, magistrate judge Douglas Eaton said Mr Dreier had acted in a "reckless, clever and improvising" manner just prior to his arrest, suggesting that he poses a serious flight risk.
If convicted of the charges against him, Mr Dreier faces up to 20 years in prison and financial penalties running into hundreds of thousands of dollars.
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