Banker Appeals Guilty Verdict

Former Silicon Valley financier Frank Quattrone appealed his criminal obstruction-of-justice conviction Thursday, arguing that there was little evidence against him and that he wasn’t allowed to tell the jury his side of the story.

In a 108-page brief filed in the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, Quattrone’s lawyers said the trial judge “consistently favored” the prosecution, resulting in a “palpably unfair trial.”

“The defendant had no motive to obstruct justice,” the appeal said. “Were the consequences not so serious and the stakes so high, the case would be the legal equivalent of a Seinfeld episode: It was ‘about nothing.’ ”

Quattrone was convicted in May of obstructing government probes into new stock offerings. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison, but remains free pending appeal.

The case stemmed from an e-mail Quattrone forwarded in December 2000 to his staff at Credit Suisse First Boston’s technology group in Palo Alto encouraging them to clean out old files.

Prosecutors said Quattrone endorsed the message to coax his team into destroying documents sought in investigations into whether the firm forced customers to pay kickbacks for shares of hugely profitable initial public stock offerings. Quattrone contended that he simply dashed off the e-mail before heading home that day.