Hedge fund co-founder Mark Nordlicht, Six other executives at Platinum Partners, charged in $1B fraud scheme by feds
‘Platinum Fund posted fictitious gains, bilked the fund’s investors of $100 million’
Mark Nordlicht Platinum’s founding partner and chief investment officer arrested in connection with $1B fraud scheme
Platinum Partners’ hedge fund executives face charges in $1B fraud scheme
Chief Investment Officer Mark Nordlicht and other execs extracted over $100 million in fees by overvaluing the fund’s assets
Also indicted, Sr Exec David Levy; Uri Landesman – marketing and investors contact; Joseph Sanfilippo, CFO Platinum’s funds,valuation team; Joseph Mann; Daniel Small, Co-portfolio manager Black Elk strategy; Jeffrey Shulse, CFO, later CEO Black Elk
Former manager Murray Huberfeld, charged separately with paying Norman Seabrook, the former head of COBA $60,000 in kickbacks
Platinum Partners’ Mark Nordlicht, left, and Uri Landesman
At the center of a scandal that ousted the powerful former correction officers’ union boss were slapped Monday with charges of financial fraud. The charges against the six executives of Platinum Partners were filed in Brooklyn Federal Court, Monday. They were accused of orchestrating a scheme in which they inflated the value of the hedge fund’s assets while painting a misleading investors about the fund’s performance.
These are the seven employees whom authorities charged, according to the indictment.
The founder of the New York-based hedge fund Platinum Partners was arrested Monday as prosecutors unveiled an indictment charging him and six others with participating in an approximately $1 billion fraud. The list of Platinum executives indicted include
Murray Huberfeld, allegedly, shelled out kickbacks to attract funds according to the fed indictment
Mark Nordlicht, Platinum’s founding partner and chief investment officer who was taken into custody at his New Rochelle, New York, home in connection with charges.
Others arrested include David Levy,Platinum’s co-chief investment officer, and Uri Landesman, the former president of the firm’s signature fund, FBI spokeswoman Adrienne Senatore said.
The firm is liquidating its hedge funds, two of which have received bankruptcy protection.
The indictment states that since 2012, Nordlicht, Levy, and Landesman schemed to defraud Platinum investors by over-valuing illiquid assets held by its flagship fund.
Murray Huberfeld, the former manager of the hedge fund was separately accused by federal prosecutors in Manhattan of paying Norman Seabrook, the former head of the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association, $60,000 in kickbacks.
Disgraced former president of the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association [COBA], Norman Seabrook indicted for accepting $60,000 kickback from
Platinum Partners is at the center of a widespread federal investigation into allegations of municipal corruption, a probe that forced longtime Rikers Island union boss Norman Seabrook to step down. The former COBA president has been accused of taking tens of thousands in kickbacks from former Platinum Partners fund manager, Murray Huberfeld.
The federal indictment alleges that Murray Huberfeld, who ran an investment firm called Platinum Partners, agreed to give Seabrook a kickback in late 2013, as incentive to invest union money in one of its high-risk funds. Seabrook subsequently invested $20 million of Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association money in Platinum Partners’ funds in 2014. In return, Seabrook received a $60,000 cash kickback in an $800 Ferragamo bag and became “angry,” griping it wasn’t enough.
Platinum Partners has since declared bankruptcy, however – making COBA’s investments in the fund “virtually worthless,” according to the Manhattan federal court lawsuit, filed by Jeffrey Norton, and former COBA president Philip Seelig.
In return, Seabrook steered $20 million in union pension money to Platinum.
U.S. Attorney Robert Capers details charges in an indictment against Platinum Partners hedge fund chief investment officer Mark Nordlicht and six others in a $1 billion fraud case in New York, Monday
“Nordlicht and his cohorts engaged in one of the largest and most brazen investment frauds perpetrated on the investing public,” Capers said.
In the new indictment, Chief Investment Officer Mark Nordlicht and other execs extracted over $100 million in fees by overvaluing the fund’s assets.
“As alleged, Nordlicht and his cohorts engaged in one of the largest and most brazen investment frauds perpetrated on the investing public,” Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Robert Capers said.
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