Administration April 6, 2006

FL Scandal-Plagued Firm Indicted

June 28, 2004 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Federal authorities have now indicted a Boca Raton, Florida brokerage firm on securities and wire fraud charges adding to the late trading and marketing timing civil charges already levied against the company.
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The latest development came with a 36-count indictment from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida against Geek Securities Inc., for allegations that the firm accepted mutual-fund orders from customers after the market closed at 4 p.m., the Wall Street Journal reported

The company allegedly used a time-stamp machine set several hours behind the actual time in order to make it appear as if the orders had been received before the 4 p.m. market close, improperly qualifying them for that day’s price, prosecutors claimed. Trades would sometimes be accepted as late as two hours after the close of stock market trading, according to the indictment.

The indictment named the firm’s owner, Kautilya Sharma, of Delray Beach, and brokers Lewis Hodge, Neal Wadhwa and Charles Kerns Sr., of Palm Beach and West Palm Beach.

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