2 Brokers Tied to Boesky Settle Cases

Two Los Angeles brokerage executives who cooperated with prosecutors in securities cases stemming from the Ivan F. Boesky insider trading scandals, settled administrative charges with federal regulators Monday.

James T. Melton, who testified for the government at the GAF Corp. stock manipulation trial, and Michael Z. Landy, a government witness against takeover strategist Paul Bilzerian, settled actions brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Both men, without admitting or denying wrongdoing, agreed to a six-month ban from dealing in the securities industry.

Melton, 47, a former director of trading for Los Angeles-based Jefferies & Co., testified at two of the three trials of GAF and its vice chairman, James Sherwin. They were accused of plotting to drive up the price of Union Carbide stock after a failed GAF takeover attempt of the Danbury, Conn.-based chemical maker. The case ended in a mistrial twice before a guilty verdict in December, 1989.

Boyd L. Jefferies, who founded the securities firm and himself pleaded guilty to securities law violations, was the government’s key witness against GAF, which was fined $2 million, and against Sherwin, who was sentenced to six months.

Convicted stock speculator Boesky implicated Jefferies, along with several other Wall Street professionals, in the industry’s biggest scandal. Melton left Jefferies & Co. in 1989.

Landy, 47, a senior vice president at Jefferies, cooperated with investigators and testified at Bilzerian’s trial.

Bilzerian was convicted of submitting false documents to the SEC, filing false tax returns and rigging transactions to skirt federal tax and disclosure laws in tandem with Jefferies. The case was the first criminal trial of illegal stock “parking,” in which securities ownership is disguised to dodge federal tax or disclosure laws.

Bilzerian was sentenced to four years and fined $1.5 million.