United States v. Skys, No. 09-5204-cr (2d Cir. February 23, 2011) (Jacobs, Kearse, Straub, CJJ) In August of 2007, Eric Skys approached Citigroup and claimed that his company, Kaiser-Himmel Corp., owned 13.4 million shares of Sprint Nextel Corp. stock, with a market value of approximately $240 million. He told Citigroup that transfer of the shares … Read more
United States v. Labbe, No. 08-0673-cr (2d Cir. December 4, 2009) (Newman, Pooler, Katzmann, CJJ) About a week before Labbe’s sentencing, the district court issued a written Sentencing Opinion describing the sentence it was likely to impose. The Opinion included a 4-level role reduction for Labbe’s “minimal” participation and announced that “Labbe is hereby sentenced … Read more
United States v. Ware, No. 07-5222-cr (2d Cir. August 18, 2009) (Kearse, Sack, Hall, CJJ) For five months in 2001 and 2002, Ware, an attorney, ran a “pump and dump” scheme, in which entities he controlled issued fraudulent, and supposedly independent, press releases promoting two penny stocks that he owned. When other investors acted on … Read more
United States v. Ivezaj, No. 06-3112-cr (2d Cir. June 11, 2009) (Feinberg, Miner, Parker, CJJ) Six defendants were convicted of racketeering and related offenses arising from their efforts to break the hold that New York City’s traditional organized crime families had on illegal gambling. The primary challenge on appeal concerned two RICO predicate acts that … Read more