Alleged market timer
Michael Sassano is about to pay up. On Friday the
SEC unveiled a
settlement, agreed to by both parties, under which the former managing director of
Oppenheimer and Co. will pay $1,000,001 over the next year. The settlement also bars Sassano from ever working with a broker-dealer or investment advisor in any capacity. But it does not preclude him from also paying any private suits brought by investors.
The SEC accused of Sassano of helping brokerage clients market time mutual funds between 1998 and 2003, through first
Schwab's and then
Fidelity's fund supermarket platforms. According to the SEC, Sassano and his underlings hit more than 80 fund companies in more than 217,000 market timing trades worth over $90 billion.
The regulators couldn't bring charges for three years after Sassano left Oppenheimer, not until early 2007 when he was reportedly located with his girlfriend in Moscow. (See Matthew Goldstein's January 31, 2007 article from
TheStreet.com.) At the time, the SEC estimated that Sassano made over $12 million off his market timing, but TheStreet's sources claimed he made even more.
Sassano is still not exactly home. While he had residences in Florida and New York, he is now living in Monaco, according to the seven-page settlement with the SEC.  
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