This Mr. Seigel Stresses He’s Not That Mr. Seigel

Mark D. Seigel wants to make one thing clear: He’s not Mark D. Seigel.

As a New York investment banker who must persuade clients to trust him with millions of their dollars, Seigel knows the importance of keeping his name clean.

Unfortunately for him there’s another Mark D. Seigel who, according to the FBI, doesn’t seem to get that message. Mark D. Seigel of Beverly Hills, that is.

The Beverly Hills Seigel, who is also in the investment business, is a past owner of and consultant to KS Resources, a firm raided by federal authorities in December because agents believed the company was running a bogus investment scheme that targeted elderly people. The case is still under investigation; Seigel has not been charged.

When the December raid was reported, Seigel N.Y. began to pay for the alleged transgressions of Seigel 90210.

It was a lesson in the perils of sharing a name in the Information Age.

The story naming Mark D. Seigel in the alleged Beverly Hills investment scam appeared in The Times on a Thursday, and by Friday morning a copy had reached the office of Seigel East.

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Showing up for what he expected would be a relaxed holiday season that Friday, Seigel was greeted by his boss, who asked to see him right away.

“He closed the door behind me, so I knew it wasn’t positive. There was a look of concern in his eyes” Seigel said.

The boss showed him the newspaper clipping and asked for reassurance that there was in fact another Mark D. Seigel. The boss believed him, but Seigel was nevertheless stunned.

“To see your name in print for a story like that is a shock, especially in this business, where people do check you out,” said Seigel the Snowman in a telephone interview from his rural Pennsylvania home, where he was trapped by the weather.

Not only had he not been in a newspaper since he made the Philadelphia Bulletin sports pages as a high school golfer and football player, he said, but he had never met anyone with even the same last name.

“You see it spelled with the I before the E, or ending with an AL, but I’ve never met anyone who spells it the same way.”

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Asked if he might be related to the Southland Seigel, he assured a reporter that there’s “not a chance.”

All branches of his family live in Philadelphia or New York, he said. He spent the holiday weeks taking calls from clients who were worried that their man was in trouble with the Feds.

After the first three or four calls, the inquiries became predictable. “There’d be a little too much small talk, then after a while they’d say, ‘I hear you’ve got a little problem,’ ” Seigel said.

Luckily, after lengthy explanations, the Wall Street Seigel convinced them that the trouble is with the Rodeo Drive Seigel.

Frosty Seigel worries less about the suspicions of current associates than the effect that Sunny Seigel’s case might have on future business.

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It’s routine, he said, for prospective partners and clients to search computer databases of newspaper articles for information on a potential associate.

Those who come across the name, he fears, will assume the worst.

“I don’t know how many people will come across the story and just throw my name in the waste basket,” said Seigel the Shivering.

A computer search of articles appearing in major newspapers and magazines over the last three years turns up just two stories about Mark D. Seigel. One is the Times piece on the Beverly Hills FBI raid, the other a St. Louis Post-Dispatch item on the appointment of a local lawyer of that name to a judgeship.

There’s no telling how long Seigel will be plagued by electronic misidentification. Meanwhile, he’ll just have to keep reminding others that he’s the one without the tan.