Broker Who Aided U.S. Going on Trial for Fraud

[seemslikeadream]

By ERIC DASH
New York Times
The federal court in Brooklyn is no stranger to stock fraud cases. But while the federal court in Manhattan typically gets the headline-grabbing Wall Street and corporate accounting scandals, the Brooklyn court is often home to the grittier, more shadowy investing world of penny stocks.

One of the more unusual of these cases goes to trial today. Anthony Elgindy, who for more than a decade has been a controversial figure in the world of cheap and thinly traded stocks of small companies, is accused of conspiring with an F.B.I. agent to obtain information about government investigations and using that information to manipulate stock prices. Prosecutors contend that Mr. Elgindy also used that information to persuade companies to pay for his silence.

But the case against Mr. Elgindy, who was known as Amr Ibrahim Elgindy before legally changing his name last year, has also attracted attention because of a prosecutor's suggestion at the time of his arrest in May 2002 that Mr. Elgindy might have had prior knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks.

At a court hearing that month, the prosecutor, Kenneth Breen, said that Mr. Elgindy, who was born in Egypt, contacted an unidentified broker at Salomon Smith Barney on Sept. 10, 2001. Predicting that the Dow Jones industrial average would soon collapse by about two-thirds, the prosecutor said that Mr. Elgindy asked the broker to sell $300,000 in his children's trust funds. Mr. Elgindy, however, was unable to sell that day and did not sell until the markets reopened for trading on Sept. 18.
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http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041101/ZNYT01/411010687

[htuttle]

1. I remember this story about the FBI agent

It was sort of a small-scale version of the airline short-sales just before 9/11.

I always figured the FBI agent in question had heard enough of the 'chatter' to assume an attack was going to happen -- sure enough to bet $300,000 on it, in any case.

[KoKo]

2. Amazing that scum like this can operate always one step ahead of

everyone. And, anyone who doesn't think this guy is connected to something bigger having to do with 9/11 trading is probably smoking something.