Legal

Former Sales Broker For LinkBrokers Pleads Guilty In Securities Fraud Scheme

Stephen Little Reporter August 22, 2013

Former Sales Broker For LinkBrokers Pleads Guilty In Securities Fraud Scheme

A former sales broker for LinkBrokers, a unit of London-based interdealer broker ICAP,  has pleaded guilty to conspiring with others to commit securities fraud and wire fraud, according to the US Department of Justice.

Marek Leszczynski, along with Benjamin Chouchane and Henry Condron, allegedly defrauded clients of millions of dollars by misrepresenting the prices at which securities were bought and sold, thereby enabling his former employer to earn undisclosed trading profits, and himself and his co-conspirators to be awarded lucrative bonuses.

On Tuesday, Leszczynski pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and wire fraud before US District Judge, John Keenan. He has agreed to forfeit $1.5 million as part of his guilty plea.

Leszczynski is scheduled to be sentenced in December and faces as much as five years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000, or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense.

Chouchane pleaded guilty in June to one count of conspiracy, while Condron pleaded guilty to being part of the scheme in October last year.

“Along with his cohorts, Marek Leszczynski sold his firm’s clients a bill of goods by repeatedly misrepresenting the prices of trade executions, all so he could increase firm profits and secure a hefty bonus.

The SEC filed a separate suit last October against the three men and a fourth former Linkbrokers employee called Gregory Reyftmann, alleging that they illegally overcharged customers $18.7 million on more than 36,000 transactions between 2005 and 2009.

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