Bagel Chain Exec Gets 7 1/2-Year Prison Term
A former top executive of the Manhattan Bagel chain was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in federal prison Friday after pleading guilty in three separate criminal fraud cases, including one in which he swindled his in-laws out of their life savings.
Allan Boren, 39, squandered most of the millions of dollars he stole on a lavish lifestyle that included high-roller gambling trips to Las Vegas, Atlantic City, the Bahamas and Europe.
When he was flush with money, Boren routinely carried a briefcase stuffed with as much as $100,000 in cash. He was known to lease Learjets, yachts and limousines on a moment’s notice when he got the urge to travel.
He had no regular address but lived in such hotels as the Peninsula Beverly Hills and the St. Regis in Century City, where he was registered under his girlfriend’s name. He was a defendant in 34 civil lawsuits at the time of his arrest.
At sentencing Friday, U.S. District Judge Gary A. Feess described Boren’s crimes as predatory, callous and despicable.
Boren, who has been in custody for the last two years, was also ordered to pay $1.2 million in restitution to his former in-laws and a handful of other investors who gave him their life savings, believing he was going to invest in municipal bonds and the stock market.
In that case, Boren pleaded guilty to 15 counts of conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering and tax evasion.
Several months earlier, he pleaded guilty to securities and accounting fraud charges -- as well as obstructing a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation -- in a corporate fraud involving his role as president and the largest stockholder in the Manhattan Bagel Co.
Boren admitted causing the company to overstate its sales in financial statements to the SEC in 1995 and 1996.
When the company was forced to restate its earnings, its stock price dropped by more than a third in one day. By that time, however, Boren had earned more than $28 million, having sold his shares before the fraud was discovered.
In that case, Boren also admitted threatening witnesses who had been subpoenaed to testify before the SEC. One of those threatened was Boren’s brother, Philip, who told authorities that Boren had roughed him up and threatened harm to his family unless he kept silent. The brother was so fearful that he moved out of his home and changed his phone number, according to court testimony.
In his third fraud conviction, Boren pleaded guilty to making false statements to banks to get them to stop payment on $2 million in cashier’s checks that he had deposited at casinos in Las Vegas and the Bahamas in 1997. Boren stopped payment on the checks after losing at the gambling tables.
