SEC Alleges More Vilar Victims
Alberto Vilar and Gary Tanaka, co-founders of Amerindo Investment Advisors, defrauded at least seven investors in addition to Lily Cates, mother of actress Phoebe Cates, the Securities and Exchange Commission said.
In court papers filed Thursday in New York, the SEC says Vilar, 65, and Tanaka, 62, stole from the investors, who include an 80-year-old New York woman with diabetes, a Vilar friend who died of cancer in 2003 and a woman who says she is a former girlfriend of Vilar.
The SEC says the two men, who face criminal charges that they stole $5 million from Cates, illegally shifted money between investors’ accounts and within a web of companies they controlled, beginning as early as 1999. The new SEC claims may provide the basis for additional criminal charges against Vilar and Tanaka that are being considered by U.S. prosecutors.
“Vilar and Tanaka intermingled the finances of the various Amerindo investment vehicles, affiliated entities and investment advisory entities and then used at least a portion of these funds for their own personal and business purposes,” the SEC says in a proposed amended complaint.
Jeffrey Hoffman, Vilar’s attorney in the criminal case, said he hadn’t read the SEC papers, but he didn’t expect the claims to result in new criminal charges. Steven G. Kobre, Tanaka’s lawyer, didn’t have any comment.
Vilar and Tanaka are charged with conspiracy, securities fraud, investment advisor fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering. Each faces as many as 10 years in prison if convicted.
