Former Mouseketeer Is Cross-Examined at Trial
A federal prosecutor Friday attacked the credibility of former Mouseketeer Darlene Gillespie, who says she unintentionally wrote bad checks to buy thousands of dollars worth of stock.
Gillespie, who is on trial for alleged stock fraud and obstructing a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, underwent a second day of intense cross-examination by Assistant U.S. Atty. Jack S. Weiss.
The former child performer, now 57, and her boyfriend, Jerry Fraschilla, 61, who live in Oxnard, were indicted last year on charges related to free-riding, the placement of stock buy orders without the means or intention to pay.
They were accused of issuing checks on overdrawn or closed accounts and creating brokerage accounts in the name of a fictitious person.
Fraschilla pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
Testifying in her own defense, Gillespie fixed blame on her bookkeeper, who is now dead, and on her former broker at Oppenheimer & Co., who, she said, refused to issue an $18,000 check due her from the sale of stock in her account. As a result, she said, she wrote a bad check to buy stock at another brokerage, Advest.
During cross-examination Friday, Weiss confronted Gillespie with five letters she had written to the Oppenheimer broker after the alleged incident, never once mentioning the $18,000 that she said was due her.
The prosecutor also grilled Gillespie about a letter the government says she forged to obstruct an SEC investigation into her margin trading.
The document purports to be a letter from the Oppenheimer broker, Gary Handler, advising Gillespie that margin calls from the company’s headquarters “should be ignored for all intents and purposes.”
Gillespie produced the letter in response to an SEC demand later that year for all documents related to her trading at Oppenheimer.
Weiss noted in his cross-examination that Handler was identified in the letter as a vice president when, in fact, he held the title of senior vice president.
The SEC sued Fraschilla and Gillespie for free-riding in 1994. The suit was settled a year later when the couple agreed to pay a fine and reimburse the brokerages for money lost.
