Investment Adviser, Patricia S. Miller, Charged with Stealing Client Funds in Massive Ponzi Scheme

A Pennsylvania woman affiliated with a Massachusetts-based broker dealer was arrested on charges that she orchestrated a massive Ponzi scheme.

Patricia S. Miller, 67, was charged in a complaint with wire fraud and arrested in Pennsylvania today.

The complaint alleges that Miller used her position as a trusted financial adviser, as well as her association with a Massachusetts-based broker dealer, to obtain money from clients for purported investments that Miller never made on their behalf. Specifically, Miller promised high returns if clients put their money into “investment clubs” called, among other things, “KS Investments” and “Buckharbor.” Miller represented, among other things, that funds put into her investment clubs would be placed in fixed-income notes and other investments. Instead of investing money as promised, Miller misappropriated client funds for her own personal use.

If convicted, Miller faces a maximum sentence under the statute of 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a $250,000 fine.

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Violence is Entrenched in Chicago #MurderCityUSA

When a 14-year-old Chicago girl was arrested on charges that she shot and killed another 14-year-old Chicago girl, much of the attention centered on how the shooting stemmed from an argument over a boy that was playing out on Facebook. But to hear police, prosecutors and the victim's friends tell it, the slaying of Endia Martin was also a tragedy that could have been stopped by many people along the way — from a trusted uncle charged with bringing the teen a gun and watching as she opened fire, to an aunt who authorities say did not step in, to the victim herself, who did not heed classmates' warnings that she risked facing a gun on that April afternoon.

The war of words ended with Martin joining the longest list of homicides in any city in the nation — offering a glimpse at life and death in some pockets of Chicago, where a reflex to grab a gun has become entrenched enough that even the victim understood the other teen might be armed.

"They are making her look like a monster when she was just a love-starved child who turned to the wrong person," said Jerry Thomas, 48, a neighbor of the accused girl and acquaintance of the uncle, 25-year-old Donnell Flora, who is charged with first-degree murder. "This thing took both children's lives."

The girl charged with first-degree murder, accused of shooting Martin in the back on April 28, appeared in juvenile court Friday for a brief hearing. She was flanked by her mother and grandmother off to one side, and the mother of the victim and other relatives standing a few feet away on the other side. The Associated Press is not releasing the girl's name because she is a minor.

Martin, who wanted to be a nurse like her mother, became the latest symbol of the violence that has put Chicago at the center of a national debate about gun crime. In 2012, the city recorded more than 500 homicides — nearly 100 more than New York. The numbers have since dropped, though Chicago still leads the nation.

Endia Martin's death highlights another part of the same Chicago story: Not of a gang dispute, but one of neighborhoods where police say firearms are so easy to find, so accepted, that a good student and respectful child allegedly contacted an uncle — himself, police say, a known gang member who has been in a wheelchair since he was shot in 2010 — and asked him to bring her a gun.

"How could he do that?' Kent Kennedy, Endia's stepfather, asked after the hearing. Kennedy, who called Endia and the suspect friends who'd graduated from eighth grade together, said he can't believe all the things that weren't done. "Just to get there on the bus, the uncle had to (travel) an hour, hour and a half on public transportation on, how could he not grab his niece and say, you should leave from this area?"

The minister who eulogized Endia at her funeral suggested that if the allegations about Flora are true, he was a man passing on a way of life he could no longer have himself. "If you're shot and paralyzed, what do you do?" asked Pastor Larry Martin, who is not related to Endia. "You can't be the villain in the neighborhood in a wheelchair, but you can help empower someone else."

Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy pointed to Flora's earlier refusal to cooperate with investigators after he was shot as a "'classic example of the cycle of violence ... that exemplifies what we are up against." McCarthy noted the prevalence of guns, and lenient sentences for gun crimes, as one of the main problems behind the city's violence.

The teen charged in the slaying was, according to Thomas, a nice girl who always had a book in her hand and said hello on her way to school. Both she and her uncle are represented by Cook County's public defender's office, which declined to comment.

Authorities also contended the suspect's aunt could have intervened. During a court hearing, a police officer testified that 32-year-old Vandetta Redwood encouraged the suspect and other teens to "kick their ass."

Footage from a cellphone camera appears to confirm Redwood was at the fight, said her attorney. But he argued there was no evidence she played a role in the shooting and a judge agreed, dismissing mob action and obstruction charges against her. Redwood declined comment.

At Endia's high school, there's talk among students of a different outcome had she listened to classmates who heard someone might bring a gun. "But she didn't expect anyone to actually use it," said one of the classmates who tried to talk Endia out of going to the scene of the fight. The classmate, who has known both girls since elementary school, spoke on condition of anonymity due to concern about retaliation. "Sometimes they bring guns to a fight — it happens."

Thanks to Don Babwin.

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Craig Marshall, Former Trader for ConvergEx Global Markets, Charged with Conspiracy

A former trader for ConvergEx Global Markets Limited (CGM Limited) — a former securities broker-dealer registered in Bermuda — has been charged in the District of New Jersey with conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Assistant Director in Charge Valerie Parlave of the FBI’s Washington Field Office and Inspector in Charge Philip R. Bartlett from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) made the announcement.

Craig Marshall, 47, of Bermuda, was charged under seal by criminal complaint on May 27, 2014.

On Dec. 18, 2013, Jonathan Daspin, the head trader at CGM Limited, Thomas Lekargeren, a sales trader at a different ConvergEx subsidiary, and CGM Limited all pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud before U.S. District Judge Jose Linares in the District of New Jersey. On the same day, CGM Limited’s parent company, ConvergEx Group LLC, entered into a deferred prosecution agreement.   Collectively, the two ConvergEx entities paid $43.8 million in criminal penalties and restitution.

According to the charges, certain ConvergEx Group broker-dealers regularly routed securities orders to CGM Limited in Bermuda so that it could take a mark-up (an additional amount paid for the purchase of a security) or mark-down (a reduction of the amount received for the sale of a security) when executing the orders. ConvergEx employees referred to such mark-ups and mark-downs as “spread,” “trading profits,” or “TP.”

Also according to charges, to hide the fact that spread had been taken on trades, Marshall, Daspin, Lekargeren, and other employees at ConvergEx Group subsidiaries in Bermuda, New York and London created and sent false transaction reports to clients with fabricated details regarding the execution of orders, including the number of shares involved in a trade, the time at which a trade was executed and the price at which shares were either purchased or sold. After sending certain clients these false reports, the conspirators took a total of $5,171,394 in spread from them.

The charges allege that Marshall, along with Daspin and other conspirators, created and sent a false transaction report to a client on or around June 25, 2007, and created and sent an additional false transaction report to another client on Aug. 11, 2009.

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With Attorney Dead, Mob Boss Joey "The Clown" Lombardo Claims Bad Lawyering in Appeal

Chicago mob boss Joey "The Clown" Lombardo is in federal prison because people died. Now he is blaming his conviction on his trial lawyer, who is also dead.

Attorney Rick Halprin died by suicide a year ago, long after losing the Lombardo case which was part of Chicago's infamous "Family Secrets" murder trial. Lombardo now has a new attorney, who has filed a new motion to get the 85-year-old out of prison.

While a gag order seemed fitting in a case where the defendant was known as "The Clown," Lombardo was no easy client for his longtime attorney Rick Halprin.

During his notorious career as a top Chicago hoodlum, Lombardo was known to sport a newspaper mask at the courthouse, and in his heyday he liked to lead news hounds on hide and seek missions, once through a construction site. But in the "Family Secrets" murder case the stakes couldn't have been higher for Lombardo and other mob bosses. Joey "The Clown" was sentenced to life in prison, and has been in solitary confinement at the federal penitentiary in Butner, N.C.

Now Halprin is being vilified in a Lombardo appeal memo newly obtained by the I-Team. Lombardo says he wants and deserves freedom because Halprin was ineffective, incompetent, deficient and unprofessional.

His new attorney from Florida is claiming Halprin did little or no work investigating the evidence and witness claims used against Lombardo, and that Halprin "ensured his conviction" by calling Lombardo a liar in closing arguments.

Lombardo's current attorney didn't respond to I-Team questions. In legal papers he claims that Halprin received extra money from the court to investigate decades-old evidence, but didn't do so.

In the motion, Halprin's work is described as so inept that Lombardo's conviction should be thrown out or he should be let out on bond.

Bad lawyering claims are not unusual, but with Halprin dead they will go unchallenged. Prosecutors, however, intend to respond in court.

Thanks to I-Team.

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The Sopranos' for the first time on Blu-ray

Often cited as one of the best TV productions of all time, drama series "The Sopranos" has yet to be released in its entirety in HD. This omission will soon be corrected with the release of a Blu-ray box set with the complete series on the mob boss Tony Soprano.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the six seasons of "The Sopranos" will be available in a single Blu-ray box set from November 4. Previously, only the first and sixth seasons had been released in HD.

The 86 episodes will come with over five hours of bonus content, all on 28 high-definition Blu-ray discs. Fans of the mafia drama can enjoy cut scenes, audio commentary tracks and roundtable discussions with the cast and crew.

The box set also includes "Defining a Television Landmark," a previously unreleased documentary with a run time of 45 minutes. Among those interviewed for the documentary are series creator David Chase, its star James Gandolfini, who died in June 2013, and Steve Buscemi, who contributed to the show's success on screen as well as from the director's chair. Steven Soderbergh and Jeff Daniels also contributed their commentary.

A touchstone of American TV culture, "The Sopranos" aired on HBO from 1999 to 2007. The series received around 60 awards in total, including 21 Emmy Awards and five Golden Globes, and is widely considered as one of if not the best series in the history of television.

Regardless of where they place "The Sopranos" in their ranking of the best shows of all time, critics agree that the show revolutionized the mafia drama genre with its portrayal of Tony Soprano, the New Jersey mob boss who is forced by his panic attacks to see a shrink on the sly. The character experiences a long and difficult battle to reconcile the interests of his family with those of his organized crime network.

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