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Gotta love it when these guys get caught

Report: Broker Fined Record $429 Million
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York Stock Exchange (news - web sites) panel has fined a former Lehman Brothers Inc. and PaineWebber Inc. broker $429 million--the largest fine ever against a broker--for allegedly buying worthless stocks on his customers' behalf in exchange for kickbacks, according to Bloomberg News.

The fine included more than $200 million in punitive damages against Enrique Ernesto Perusquia, who had worked at Lehman Brothers' Manhattan office and PaineWebber's Manhattan and San Francisco offices, the news report said.

The NYSE three-person panel found that between 1992 and 1998 Perusquia used his clients' money to invest in shares of companies that were nearly bankrupt. He then falsified his customers' brokerage account statements to hide the fraud, Bloomberg News said.

Perusquia lost almost the entire $100 million that had been invested by a total of 12 families, Bloomberg News said, citing the families' Houston lawyer, Thomas Ajamie.

Ajamie, a lawyer at Schirrmeister Ajamie LLP in Houston, could not be reached for comment on Tuesday, nor could Perusquia's attorneys, Cooper White & Cooper LLP. Perusquia has an unlisted number and could not be contacted.

Representatives from the NYSE also could not be reached for immediate comment.

Bloomberg News reported the award was comprised of about $208.7 million in actual damages, $11 million in attorneys' fees and about $208.7 million in punitive damages.

The NYSE award document was dated Nov. 28, 2001.

Bloomberg News said that Ajamie didn't think Perusquia had the means to pay the entire $429 million fine.

Earlier this year, Ajamie's clients settled with PaineWebber, now owed by Swiss Bank UBS AG, Lehman Brothers Inc. and ChaseManhattan Bank, which cleared the trades for the two firms, Bloomberg News reported.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011225/bs/financial_broker_dc_1.html