Scammers, Spammers, and Slammers

[Tina]

Police Look Into Business Dealings of 2 Slain Stock Promoters
By IVER PETERSON
Published: October 28, 1999
The two partners in an Internet stock promotion operation who were found shot to death on Tuesday inside a mansion here were linked to ''shady'' business dealings and may have been killed to be silenced, the Monmouth County Prosecutor said today.
One victim, Albert Alain Chalem, 41, who lived in the mansion in this wealthy suburb, had worked for the brokerage A. S. Goldmen, which was indicted in July in New York on several charges of stock manipulation and illegal trading; the firm has denied the charges. The other victim, Maier Lehmann, 37, of Woodmere, N.Y., paid $630,000 in penalties and refunds to investors last year to settle a regulatory complaint accusing him of fraud and securities registration violations. The case remains under criminal investigation by Federal prosecutors.
The two men, shot execution style, were found on the marble floor of the foyer of the $1.1 million home by two friends of Mr. Chalem's at 1 A.M. Tuesday. Mr. Lehmann apparently died of a single shot, while Mr. Chalem was shot several times, suggesting that he had tried to get up after being shot. Cell phones belonging to the two men were lying nearby, and are being analyzed.

The house was otherwise undisturbed, and money has been dismissed as a direct motive.

''If someone swindles you out of money, what you want is your money back,'' John Kaye, the County Prosecutor, said. ''You don't murder them, because then you don't get your money and you get caught. So my operating belief is that there was something more here. It was probably related to the victims' business activities, and the killer or killers feared something else more than the loss of money.''

Mr. Kaye called the two men's business practices ''shady'' but said investigators did not know of any illegal operations involving the Web site the men maintained. That site, www.stockinvestor.com, that provided free stock quotes but also recommended that investors buy certain small and obscure stocks, known as penny stocks. Just a little buying or selling can cause big changes in such stocks' prices, which is why the number of Web sites devoted to them has soared, despite warnings from securities regulators that many of these sites are vehicles for stock fraud.

Aggressive penny stock promotions have been a chronic problem for regulators for more than a decade, and have proliferated during the current stock market boom. But until the last few years, these cases have rarely involved violence or threats of violence.

Investigators spent today hauling away vanloads of evidence from the mansion, including paper files and computers. The computer hard drives have been sent to the New Jersey State Police laboratories for analysis and duplication, Mr. Kaye said, and Federal investigators, including officials from securities law enforcement agencies, are helping to sift the financial records taken from the house. No weapon was recovered, said Chief Kevin A. Sauter of the Colts Neck Police Department.

Investigators appeared to be focusing on Mr. Chalem, if only because the slayings took place at his home. But given his involvement in a case under criminal investigation, Mr. Lehman may also have had knowledge that would have made someone want to silence him, Mr. Kaye said.

''We have lots of evidence and lots of leads and lots of suspects, because lots of people didn't like these people,'' he said.

Securities and Exchange Commission records give Mr. Lehmann's wife's name as Tamar, and a phone number for a Tammy Lehmann is listed in Woodmere, N.Y. The number was connected to a fax machine.

Mr. Chalem is listed in his most recent regulatory filing as living in East Hampton, N.Y., at 20 Cross Highway, but Chief Sauter said the broker had moved to Colts Neck in the spring.
The white brick mansion sits on about 10 acres on Blue Bell Lane, with a circular drive surrounding a fountain. It was bought in the spring for $1.1 million by Russell Candela, of Brooklyn, who is the father of Mr. Chalem's girlfriend, Kimberly Scarola, 39.

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