VAN NUYS : Ex-Commodities Broker Gets Nearly 9-Year Term

A former commodities broker--whose once close ties to Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner forced the state attorney general’s office to take over prosecution of the case--was sentenced Friday to nearly nine years in prison for defrauding clients of nearly $900,000.

In sentencing Mark R. Weinberg, 38, to the maximum term of eight years and eight months on two counts of grand theft and three counts of writing bad checks, Van Nuys Superior Court Judge John Fisher said he had been moved by a letter to a newspaper in which the writer noted the discrepancy in sentences handed out to minority looters and those usually given to white-collar criminals.

Weinberg was convicted on the five fraud charges in March and was acquitted of five similar counts. The jury deadlocked on two other counts. Weinberg faces a second trial involving 13 counts of fraud.