Friday, November 16, 2007

More on the 'Amazing Fraud'

Floyd Norris of the New York Times has a scintillating account in his blog of the in-your-face greed -- and chutzpah -- of Universal Express CEO Richard Altomare. This story is getting more outrageous with each passing day.

Seems that even as the company was being nailed by the SEC, and defiantly issuing a stream of press releases blaming its share price decline on "counterfeit shares," Altomare was living high on the hog at company expense. Floyd reports, inter alia:

From April 2006 to May 2007 — the latter date after the judge had ordered him to stop running the company — Mr. Altomare had the company spend $558,900 at a retail jewelry store in Boca Raton, Fla. In October, he pawned the jewelry for
$500,000.


In July — after my column, and after the Securities and Exchange Commission asked a judge to hold him in contempt for failing to obey the earlier order — Universal Express paid $30,000 “to cover Altomare’s marker at the Wynn Las Vegas,” a casino.


Wasn't that nice of Universal Express? It will be interesting to see what else the SEC-appointed receiver uncovers.

© 2007 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.

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Wall Street Versus America was published by Penguin USA on April 6.
Click here for its Amazon.com listing and here for more information on the book, from my web site, gary-weiss.com.

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