Ex Wall Streeter Takes $25 million From Foundation

by Gary Snyder

A Wall Street scion and former private-equity manager pleaded guilty Wednesday to cheating investors, including an industry peer’s charitable foundation, out of more than $38 million to feed what he called an uncontrollable gambling habit, Reuters reports. Andrew Caspersen’s chief victim was the Moore Charitable Foundation, headed by hedge-fund billionaire Louis Bacon, which lost some $25 million in the fraud scheme.

Mr. Caspersen, the Princeton- and Harvard-educated son of the late financier and philanthropist Finn M.W. Caspersen, agreed to forfeit $45 million as part of his guilty plea to wire and securities fraud. Prosecutors said that while working for Park Hill Group, a private-equity arm of investment bank PJT Partners, he solicited investments he claimed would fund loans to private-equity firms.

“It was just a means for me to get money to feed a gambling addition that was all consuming at the time,” a tearful Mr. Caspersen said in federal court. Sentencing was scheduled for November 2. (source)

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