Jefferies Leisurely Awaiting Fate in Aspen
Boyd L. Jefferies is providing information to federal authorities in their continuing investigation of insider trading and other abuses in the high-stakes world of corporate takeovers.
In a telephone interview with The Times last week, the former Los Angeles securities trader acknowledged that he is cooperating as part of his plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s office in New York. As part of that deal, Jefferies pleaded guilty to two felonies, resigned all positions with his firm, Jefferies & Co., and accepted a five-year ban from the securities business. Jefferies declined to discuss details of his cooperation.
Jefferies has not been sentenced and is spending his government-imposed exile from the securities business in a four-bedroom condominium overlooking the Roaring Fork River in Aspen, Colo.
Whether he spends it all in such affluent freedom depends in part on the value of the information he is providing federal investigators.
The millionaire trader, who sold his $5-million Laguna Beach home last year, faces a maximum term of 10 years in prison when he appears before federal Judge Morris E. Lasker.
Sentencing has been delayed indefinitely as a result of Jefferies’ cooperation. While the law requires a judge to weigh the value of a defendant’s cooperation in determining a sentence, there is no set formula.
While waiting to learn his fate, one of the financial world’s legendary workaholics is devoting his energies to activities for which he had little time when he worked 15 hours a day in the fevered trading room of Jefferies & Co., 33 stories above downtown Los Angeles.
“I’ve lost 13 pounds and I’m working out every day,” Jefferies said in the interview from the condo he shares with his wife. “I set up a junior golf program for about 100 kids here.”
Jefferies, a good golfer with a handicap around 12, organized the program and hired 10 pros and assistants to teach the classes. Clubs were donated by a company owned by pal Irwin L. Jacobs, a Minneapolis-based takeover specialist. There are lessons on Mondays and Fridays and a tournament once a week, a format in keeping with the organizer’s competitive drive.
“I sure miss the business,” Jefferies said. “I really miss the business. It’s been my life. I don’t miss getting up at 1:30 in the morning to go to work. But I miss the rest. The securities business is so dynamic every day. It really gets the adrenalin going.”
Perhaps no one’s adrenalin ran stronger than that of Boyd Jefferies, and some say that that’s what got him into trouble.
“I’ve always been a person who, if someone said it can’t be done, I’d figure out a way to do it,” he said. “In my anxiety to get the job done, maybe I didn’t take a step backward and say, ‘Wait a minute.’
“But everyone was doing it.”
