Posted on 07/26/2005 2:13:59 PM PDT by raccoonradio
BOSTON (AP) -- A former investment firm manager who confessed to stealing more than $27 million from investors, including his mother, was set to plead guilty on Tuesday.
Bradford Bleidt, 51, manager of Allocation Plus Asset Management, attempted suicide in November after he mailed taped confessions to securities regulators, family members and business associates.
He was scheduled to plead guilty in U.S. District Court on Tuesday afternoon, according to the court calendar.
Bleidt, of Manchester-by-the-Sea, is charged with 115 counts of mail fraud and a single count of money laundering. It was not immediately clear whether he would plead guilty to some or all of the charges. His attorney did not immediately return a telephone call and prosecutors declined to comment.
Bleidt also faces a separate civil complaint by securities regulators who accuse him of defrauding more than 125 mostly small investors.
"I think that the only surprise is it's taken this long," attorney Harry S. Miller, who represents some of Bleidt's former investors, said of the expected guilty plea. "Regardless of what his plea will be, it will not result in any recovery for any of the individuals of the funds that he stole from them, and therefore as far as we're concerned, it's just the beginning. The legal process will have to continue."
Bleidt, who also owned Boston radio station WBIX-AM, admitted stealing from new clients' accounts. Instead of depositing funds into investments such as money market funds, he set aside the cash for personal use and business purposes, including $15 million to operate WBIX, federal prosecutors said.
Investigators said the victims included retirees, a Greek Orthodox church and a Masons hall.
Before a failed suicide attempt at his home, Bleidt recorded and sent at least nine audio tapes describing what he called a "great big Ponzi scheme" to authorities at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, his wife, his mother and business associates.
The scheme unraveled after St. Demetrios Church in Weston asked for the return of the $1.5 million it had given Bleidt to invest. He had used the money to buy the radio station.
Bleidt faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on each mail fraud count and 10 years in prison on the money laundering charge.
It was not immediately clear whether Bleidt's guilty plea would be part of a deal under which prosecutors have agreed to recommend a reduced sentence. A spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Michael J. Sullivan declined to comment.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1292567/posts
formal sentencing will be Oct 25; he could get 11 years
I'd like to know more about his 'failed suicide attempt'. Suggested by his attorney perhaps? ... to establish his profound remorse?
Actually the failed suicide attempt took place before all of this came out/before he was charged, etc. In Nov. of last year, there was a party to celebrate his station, WBIX, getting "night-time authorization" from the FCC. IIRC,
he tried to suffocate himself by running his car in the garage (carbon monoxide)--he wound up bumping his head against something, etc.
The Boston Globe reported:
"Several hours after Bradford C. Bleidt, an investment manager who owns Boston radio station WBIX, drove home from a festive station party last week at one of the city's most exclusive hotels, he attempted suicide. On Friday, Securities and Exchange Commission agents in Boston received
a tape in the mail that explained why.
"Bleidt confessed on the tape that he bought the business news station with money that he diverted from his clients' investment accounts, according to an SEC complaint. He said he had misappropriated "tens of millions" of dollars of his clients' money over 20 years.
"The "day of reckoning" arrived last week when a client, identified by SEC officials as a Greek Orthodox church, wanted $1.5 million of its money, Bleidt says on the tape, which the SEC said he made before he attempted suicide.
""There is a client that needs a million and a half dollars wired into their account that's supposed to be there this morning, and obviously it's not going to be there this morning because the money's gone. I stole it. I used it to buy a radio station, believe it or not," Bleidt said on the tape.
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.