Stock Manipulator Fined $250,000, Given Probation

Prominent Wall Street stock speculator Salim B. (Sandy) Lewis was sentenced today to three years’ probation and fined $250,000 after pleading guilty to manipulating the price of Fireman’s Fund Corp. stock.

U.S. District Judge Mary Johnson Lowe told Lewis she spared him a prison term and sentenced him to work in a drug rehabilitation clinic because “your skills should not be wasted.”

Lowe fined S. B. Lewis & Co., the firm founded by Lewis, a total of $400,000 on two counts of falsifying records and violating securities margin requirements.

The sentencing of Lewis was the latest in a series for securities industry figures implicated in wrongdoing as an outgrowth of the Ivan Boesky insider trading scandal. Lewis’ punishment was among the lightest meted out so far.

Lewis, 50, faced up to 15 years in prison and a fine of $750,000.

He still must settle related charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission.