New York-area hedge fund manager charged with Ponzi fraud

dealmaker said:
#FUNDS NEWS
OCTOBER 5, 2017 / 10:36 AM / A DAY AGO
New York-area hedge fund manager charged with Ponzi fraud
Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK, Oct 5 (Reuters) - A suburban New York hedge fund manager who once worked at Morgan Stanley and was accused of losing or spending all but about $27,000 of the $21.8 million he told investors he had was criminally charged on Thursday with running a Ponzi scheme.

Prosecutors said Michael Scronic, 46, of Pound Ridge, New York, stole more than $19 million from 45 investors he had lured since April 2010 to his Scronic Macro Fund by lying about his track record.

Scronic, who has degrees from Stanford University and the University of Chicago, allegedly suffered losses in 28 of 29 calendar quarters, even as he reported largely positive returns on falsified account statements.

Prosecutors said he also spent $2.9 million on himself over 5-1/2 years, including $180,000 annually on credit cards, fees for beach and country club memberships, and mortgage payments for a vacation home near Stratton Mountain in Vermont.

A lawyer for Scronic could not immediately be identified. The defendant worked for Morgan Stanley from 1998 to 2005, including on an equities trading desk, court papers show. Morgan Stanley was not accused of wrongdoing.

Scronic was criminally charged with one count each of securities fraud and wire fraud. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed related civil charges.

Authorities said Scronic used some new money to repay earlier investors, but as cash became tight this summer refused to honor some investors’ redemption requests.

According to court papers, Scronic had emailed one of those investors in November 2015 that “what’s cool about my fund is that i‘m only in publicly traded options and cash so any redemptions are met within 2 business days so if you do need to withdraw for your business needs it will be quick and painless.”

Authorities said it proved otherwise.

They said Scronic blamed a vacation, a relative’s medical condition, email issues, and a new quarterly redemption policy for refusing the investor’s Aug. 8 redemption request.

As of Monday, that investor was still waiting for his money, court papers showed. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Tom Brown)

http://www.reuters.com/article/new-...anager-charged-with-ponzi-fraud-idUSL2N1MG1GD
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(Was on vacation and late to the party...)


Scumbag!
 
dealmaker said:
#FUNDS NEWS
OCTOBER 5, 2017 / 10:36 AM / A DAY AGO
New York-area hedge fund manager charged with Ponzi fraud
Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK, Oct 5 (Reuters) - A suburban New York hedge fund manager who once worked at Morgan Stanley and was accused of losing or spending all but about $27,000 of the $21.8 million he told investors he had was criminally charged on Thursday with running a Ponzi scheme.

Prosecutors said Michael Scronic, 46, of Pound Ridge, New York, stole more than $19 million from 45 investors he had lured since April 2010 to his Scronic Macro Fund by lying about his track record.

Scronic, who has degrees from Stanford University and the University of Chicago, allegedly suffered losses in 28 of 29 calendar quarters, even as he reported largely positive returns on falsified account statements.

Prosecutors said he also spent $2.9 million on himself over 5-1/2 years, including $180,000 annually on credit cards, fees for beach and country club memberships, and mortgage payments for a vacation home near Stratton Mountain in Vermont.

A lawyer for Scronic could not immediately be identified. The defendant worked for Morgan Stanley from 1998 to 2005, including on an equities trading desk, court papers show. Morgan Stanley was not accused of wrongdoing.

Scronic was criminally charged with one count each of securities fraud and wire fraud. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed related civil charges.

Authorities said Scronic used some new money to repay earlier investors, but as cash became tight this summer refused to honor some investors’ redemption requests.

According to court papers, Scronic had emailed one of those investors in November 2015 that “what’s cool about my fund is that i‘m only in publicly traded options and cash so any redemptions are met within 2 business days so if you do need to withdraw for your business needs it will be quick and painless.”

Authorities said it proved otherwise.

They said Scronic blamed a vacation, a relative’s medical condition, email issues, and a new quarterly redemption policy for refusing the investor’s Aug. 8 redemption request.

As of Monday, that investor was still waiting for his money, court papers showed. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Tom Brown)

http://www.reuters.com/article/new-...anager-charged-with-ponzi-fraud-idUSL2N1MG1GD
More...

Scumbag Extraordinaire....
400x-1.jpg
 
Plenty of brilliant people when given other people $ to manage started of with good intentions - a few bad trades start cascading loses, a few bills start stacking up and next thing you know you have a full blown Ponzi scheme.

Not using a legit RIA that is using a reputable fiduciary for hosting the account & book keeping is asking for problems.

When people used to ask me if I would manage their $ the answer was hell no! I would explain that I am extremely unqualified, lacking state & federal licensing and it would impose great risk of ruin to you the investor and me the trader.
 
Why do people like this think they'll get away with it? They have to be aware that sooner or later their investors will come asking about their money.
 
mlawson71 said:
Why do people like this think they'll get away with it? They have to be aware that sooner or later their investors will come asking about their money.
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It`s denial & living in the now... Like some have stated, they all start with sincere intentions & delusions of grandeur... They compound their disasters quickly by averaging losers, quickly arriving at the "praying stage" of train wreck of a position.
Ego is the most dangerous trait of all as they simply attempt to "trade their way out" because someone oh so intelligent with a shit sheepskin from Stanford could not possibly this wrong, this often.... so the story repeats itself many times over.
 
The sad thing is he spent $2.9M on himself over 5 1\2 years. That's about $500K a year, around what he could have somewhat honestly been making if he'd stayed at MS.
 
Sig said:
The sad thing is he spent $2.9M on himself over 5 1\2 years. That's about $500K a year, around what he could have somewhat honestly been making if he'd stayed at MS.
More...

Yeap, most of the losses went to bad trading and early investors cashing out on non-existing gains. Maybe some of those can be recalled...
 
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