Posted on 05/24/2002 1:03:26 PM PDT by Dallas
SAN DIEGO --
An Egyptian-born financial analyst charged in a nationwide stock swindle may have known about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and tried to profit from them, a federal prosecutor said Friday.
Amr I. "Tony" Elgindy telephoned his broker on Sept. 10 and asked him to liquidate his children's $300,000 trust account, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ken Breen told a federal judge at Elgindy's detention hearing.
"He made a comment predicting the market would drop to 3,000" at a time when the Dow Jones stock index was at 9,600, Breen said. "Perhaps Mr. Elgindy had pre-knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks. Instead of trying to report it, he tried to profit from it."
Elgindy, 34, of Encinitas, was ordered held without bond on charges of racketeering, extortion and obstruction of justice. Before issuing the order, Magistrate Judge John Houston said he was going to "disregard" the suggestion that Elgindy had anything to do with the terror attacks.
Elgindy, wearing a tan jumpsuit, did not speak during the hourlong hearing.
His attorney, Jeanne Knight, said Elgindy did call his broker to make a trade, but the timing was coincidental and the market had been dropping for months.
"It seems like the government, for lack of factual evidence, has decided to smear my client with terrorist innuendoes," Knight said. "This is smacking of racial profiling."
Breen made his accusations as prosecutors tried to convince Houston that Elgindy was a flight risk and should be denied bail.
Elgindy, one of five defendants in the case, was arrested May 22 on an indictment issued by a grand jury in New York.
In exchange for money, two FBI agents used confidential databases to provide Elgindy and other co-conspirators with information on publicly traded companies, the indictment said.
Elgindy allegedly spread negative information about the companies on his Web site and to subscribers of his e-mail newsletter, InsideTruth.com, while betting that the companies' stock would go down.
In one case, a former FBI agent searched the agency's confidential National Crime Information Center database and discovered the criminal history of a top executive for a company called Nuclear Solutions, the indictment said. The same day, Elgindy began sending e-mail calling the executive "a convicted felon," then sold the company's stock short, the papers said.
Earlier this week, FBI agents raided Elgindy's $2.2 million mansion. Inside, agents said, they found tens of thousands of dollars in cash and gold coins. The government is seeking to seize Elgindy's fleet of cars, including a Rolls Royce, a Jaguar and a Humvee.
If convicted of all counts, Elgindy faces a maximum 65 years in prison.
Copyright © 2002, The Associated Press
all this time I thought we'd been hobknobbin with henry.
You know, it's just possible that poohbah and sinkspur are women. Ever think of that?
(sorry, mancini :-(, horrible comparison.)
I'll let you in on a little secret about poohbah and sinskspur--they're really hermaphrodites!
Now, if we can just get those wascally poohbah and sinkspur to fess up!
BTW, you whispered what you know about them too softly. Put it in #20 size font like this ---- Poohbah, sinkspur ........ 'cause my glasses are dirty and the flyspecks get in the way................
He made a comment predicting the market would drop to 3,000" at a time when the Dow Jones stock index was at 9,600, Breen said. "Perhaps Mr. Elgindy had pre-knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks
Boy, that’s a HUGE leap in deduction there.
Using that criteria, there was a few people around here who had “prior knowledge” about 911.
Funny you should mention that. The guy committed suicide by hanging in July 2015.
Authorities began looking into the activities of Anthony Elgindy, an Egyptian-born investor who was among those indicted, as part of the wide-ranging net cast by investigators looking for potential financiers of Muslim groups with links to terrorism last fall, according to a Federal Bureau of Investigation official. .../snip
Weird article to mention that and then not follow up on why the Elgindy case may have had anything to do with the Robert Hanssen case.
bump
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.