Here’s an update to a post from last summer. Our old friend Russell Wasendof, Sr. was sentenced today to 50 years in prison for massive fraud. The following is our original post from August 17th:
For those of you who never got around to taking ancient Greek in college, the word of the day is hubris.
Webster’s dictionary, 8th ed.: “Excessive pride or self-confidence,
often entailing a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of
one’s own capabilities, especially on the part of those in positions of
power.”
That pretty much sums up the psychology behind the ongoing debacle
that is Peregrine Financial, whose founder and CEO, Russell Wasendorf,
Sr., was indicted in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Monday on 31 counts of lying
to U.S. financial regulators.
By his own admission, Wasendorf bilked investors out of nearly $100
million over the course of nearly two decades (just days before his
arrest, the National Futures Association reported a deficit of more than
$200 million in funds that Peregrine Financial had claimed to be on
deposit at U.S. Bank). To hide the theft, he cooked up fake bank
statements using Photoshop, Microsoft Excel, and high-quality printers.
These he then handed over to Peregrine’s CFO, who appears to have
adopted an “OK, you’re the boss” attitude after Wasendorf used what he
called “blunt authority” to cow him into submission. Wasendorf seems to
have taken special pride in his forger’s art, bragging of how adept he
eventually became at falsifying not just hard copies, but online
statements as well, none of which the financial regulators appear to
have questioned. (more)
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