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- THE WEEK, Page 24BUSINESSBusiness Ethics of the Rich and Famous?
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- The SEC charges seven highflyers with insider trading
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- Move over, Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky. Federal
- investigators have cracked open another huge insider-trading
- scandal, and this time they have implicated some of the most
- prominent names in America's social register. The Securities and
- Exchange Commission accuses seven corporate leaders of raking
- in at least $13 million in illegal profits from stock trading
- based on inside information.
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- Among the luminaries charged were Martin Revson,
- co-founder of the Revlon cosmetics empire, and Edward Downe Jr.,
- a former director of the investment bank Bear Stearns and
- husband of auto heiress Charlotte Ford. The SEC claims Downe
- used his position at the Wall Street firm to cull confidential
- information on companies and then used it to earn profits of
- $3.3 million in stock trades. Revson allegedly netted $1.7
- million from improper tips he received from Downe. Others
- charged by the SEC are Steven Greenberg, a former public
- relations executive, who allegedly pocketed $550,000 in illicit
- profits; Thomas Warde, a real estate developer ($1 million);
- David Salamone, a business partner of Downe's ($4 million); and
- Milton Weinger, a stockbroker at Oppenheimer & Co. ($2.3
- million). Fred Sullivan was charged only with passing sensitive
- information to outsiders while on the board of Tyler, an
- industrial-products manufacturer.
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- The investors gathered at parties in Southampton, N.Y.,
- and on Downe's yacht in the Caribbean, where they allegedly
- exchanged inside information. While most of the defendants have
- denied any wrongdoing, two have come forward to settle some of
- the charges. Sullivan has agreed to pay a penalty of $58,000
- without denying or admitting his guilt. Downe has pleaded guilty
- to two criminal counts and could face 10 years in prison. "It's
- terrible," he said, "just awful to be in this situation."
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