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EX-REFCO BROKERS CHARGED
By RODDY BOYD

April 5, 2006 -- The Securities and Exchange Commission filed suit yesterday against three brokers at a small Long Island brokerage for allegedly using their account at Refco to run a wide-ranging short-selling scam.

The three brokers - Jacob Spinner, Mottes Drillman and Jeffrey "Danny" Graham - worked at Pond Securities and are alleged to have worked with an off-shore hedge fund to illegally short-sell the stock of Sedona Corp., a small Pennsylvania-based software company.

Pond and its two principals, Ezra Birnbaum and Shaye Hirsch, are also named in the suit.

According to the suit, the three brokers, in conjunction with Andrea Badian, a hedge fund manager at Rhino Advisors, used "naked shorting" - or the failure to properly borrow shares - to collapse Sedona's share price.

What's more, Badian told the three to sell Sedona stock with "unbridled levels of aggression," the suit claimed.

Back in July, prior to its ill-fated initial public offering, Refco disclosed the SEC's concerns over the supervisory role of executive vice-president Santo Maggio prompted him to pay a fine and accept a six-month suspension from his duties.

Refco faced more heat on the legal front yesterday, as former clients like bond giant PIMCO sued the collapsed futures titan for $1 billion, alleging its extension of margin to unqualified clients put client funds at risk.