Daniel Bealko, a former commodities broker for GM and Anthony Brown, a metal dealer have been indicted by a Chicago grand jury for "diverting" $80 million from General Motors through an elaborate manipulation of the monies from the sale of aluminum owned by GM. Details at the Chicago Sun-Times.

-- MDT

Labels: Anthony Brown, Daniel Bealko, GM, tax evasion, wire fraud

Montanta-based Private Investigator, Michael Lair (President of wing-nutty ConsumerDefense.com) bilked as much as $300,000 from his lawyer-clients by claiming he could get information about companies of interest to them. It goes without saying that he didn't make good on actually providing the promised data.

This week Lair plead guilty to four counts of wire fraud in relation to these activities. In his plea agreement, Lair named several prominent law firms that he successfully swindled, including two New York firms: Morvillo, Abramowitz, Grand, Iason, Anello & Bohrer and Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman.

"Information" is a little vague, but Lair has stated that he was asked by some law firms to gather information by illegal means (he actually used this as a sales tactic for his scams) implying that he was able to obtain information otherwise unavailable as a public record.

The Wall Street Journal law blog has a bit more on Mr. Lair.

-- MDT

Labels: Kasowitz Benson, Michael Lair, Morvillo Abramowitz, wire fraud

Former NBC Universal Treasurer, Victor Jung has been indicted on two counts of wire fraud relating to allegations that the 12 year veteran of NBC (the guy's only 34...did he start out in the Page program?) nearly $900,000 from NBC's parent company, General Electric.

Jung started out with GE as a financial analyst after graduating from Haverford College in 1994 working, ironically, on GE internal financial investigations. He rose to Vice President of Cash Management and just last year was named to the position of Treasurer.

In November 2005 Jung supposedly created his own company on the sly, NBCU Media Productions. Then he made two wire transfers from GE company account to his own entity, which had been named with the intent to masquerade as a real company subsidiary, NBC Media Production.

Needless to say, someone noticed the funds went missing. Also noticeable: Jung's lifestyle took a lavish upswing, with private flights for he and guests to Miami, Antigua, and the Turks and Caicos Islands as well as lavish food, drink and gifts and - oh the cliche - a house in the Hamptons.

Jung submitted a not guilty plea on two counts of wire faud has been released on bond. He is facing up to 20 years and a $250,000 fine.

-- MDT

Labels: embezzlement, Gerson Lehrman Group, NBC, Victor Jung, wire fraud