Ex-Stockbroker Faces Charges of Fraud

A former San Francisco stockbroker was charged with defrauding a Silicon Valley family of more than $4 million in a stock scheme that mushroomed after he lost bonus money his wife got from her employer, Goldman Sachs Group.

The U.S. attorney’s office in San Francisco charged Daniel Patrick O’Connell, former senior vice president in the San Francisco office of Spencer Trask Securities Inc., with three counts of wire fraud, prosecutors said. In March and April, O’Connell withdrew $6million from the account of Rajvir and Swadesh Singh and lost about $4.25 million in high-tech stock investments, prosecutors said in documents unsealed Tuesday.

An attorney for O’Connell didn’t respond to a message left on his answering machine.