The final domino has fallen in a Wall street federal case against Gryphon Financial, a Staten Island boiler room with alleged ties to the Gambino organized crime family through Michael Scarpaci, a member of a Gambino Mafia crew dealing in gambling and loansharking rackets.
Baldwin Anderson, a salesman at the firm, pleaded guilty to fraud charges last week shortly after his trial kicked off in a Brooklyn federal courtroom. All of the 18 Gryphon employees charged with helping cheat investors out of $20 million between 2005 and 2010 have now pleaded guilty and face sentencing next month.
Mr. Anderson, who is 57 and sold mattresses before landing a job at Gryphon, faces up to 21 years in prison according to a spokesman for the federal prosecutor’s office in Brooklyn. His lawyer, Michael Padden of the federal public defender’s office, didn’t return a call. read More Click here: Final domino falls in Gryphon fraud case – In the Markets | Crain’s New York Business
Gryphon was a pretty brazen fraud. Its employees falsely claimed to be graduates of the most elite universities and falsely claimed that investment legend George Soros lauded them as “incredible.”
Another member of this not-so-crack sales team was Michael Scarpaci, a former general sales manager at Nissan of Queens and, according to a federal indictment in a separate case, an organizer of “various illegal gambling operations” for the Gambino organized crime family. Those operations included an online sports-betting venture and a regular high-stakes poker game. Mr. Scarpaci, a father of four, pleaded guilty to racketeering in the Gambino case and last month was sentenced to up to 18 months in prison.
Gryphon was founded and run by Kenneth Marsh, a broker who bounced around Wall Street’s dodgier precincts for years. He worked at 14 firms, including Barron Chase and Salomon Grey, which regulators expelled from the industry in 2002 and 2006, respectively. In 2007, Mr. Marsh was also barred from the business. Nonetheless, he continued to operate Gryphon out of a Staten Island shopping center, although he told clients that his firm was located in a Wall Street office tower. Among the assets Mr. Marsh agreed to forfeit as part of his guilty plea was his black 2007 Porsche 911 Turbo, valued at $60,000.
