Empire State Jury Clears Sihpol of Scandal-Related Charges
A New York Supreme Court jury in Manhattan found Sihpol not guilty on 29 of the 33 counts against him, the New York Times reported. Jurors were deadlocked on the four remaining counts, and Justice James Yates declared a mistrial, the Times reported.
Sihpol had been accused of enabling hedge fund manager, Edward Stern, to make late trades of mutual funds (See Ex-BoA Broker Sihpol Indicted in Scandal ). It was a tip about those trades in 2003 that initiated a broad investigation of the mutual fund industry by Spitzer and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) focusing on market timing, late trading, and certain sales practices.
Sihpol, while a relatively low-level figure, was the first executive to be brought to trial in that investigation and his case was considered the first major courtroom test of Spitzer’s office in the fund scandal (See Sihpol Heads to Trial on Improper Fund Trading Charges ).
During the six-week trial, the focus was not on whether Sihpol arranged for Stern to trade after hours, but whether Sihpol was aware that those trades were wrong. Throughout the trial, Sihpol’s lawyers portrayed him as an inexperienced, junior employee of the bank, and argued that other executives at Bank of America were aware of Stern’s trading arrangements.