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Las Vegas Casino Figure Jailed for Bankruptcy Fraud27 July 2001TRENTON, New Jersey –July 27, 2001 –As reported by the New York Times:” After making a tearful apology to his family, friends and officials of the federal bankruptcy court, a once-flamboyant penny-stock tycoon, Robert Brennan, was sentenced Thursday to nine years and two months in federal prison for money-laundering and bankruptcy fraud. ”… [Judge Garrett E. Brown of U.S. District Court] also ordered Brennan, 57, to pay restitution of nearly $4.6 million -- about $100,000 more than the amount he was convicted last April of fraudulently failing to list on a 1995 federal bankruptcy petition. ”…He has a contempt proceeding pending in federal court for using $500,000 from funds that a judge had ordered frozen to pay his lawyer, Michael Critchley. A second contempt order has been filed by another federal judge for Brennan's refusal to return millions from one of his overseas trusts. Since mid-1995, the Securities and Exchange Commission has been trying to collect a $75 million judgment it won against Brennan for defrauding investors of his brokerage firm, First Jersey Securities, which is defunct. He also owes the state of New Jersey $100 million for defrauding investors in another case. ”Thursday's daylong hearing was one full of contrasting images of Brennan. In a letter, the Securities and Exchange Commission denounced him for `blatant defiance’ of the nation's securities laws, defrauding investors and committing a "direct assault" on the country's securities industry and bankruptcy courts for the last two decades. ”…[Brennan] called his decision to place millions of dollars in offshore trusts, beyond the reach of creditors, a `horrible judgment.’ He said he was proud of his charitable works. But then, after noting that his parents had raised him to respect the law, he said he also made decisions that he was ashamed of, particularly those made in his bankruptcy case. ”…Robert Brennan is well known in Las Vegas as a high-rolling gambler and because of his ties to the now-imploded El Rancho hotel-casino on the Strip. A Brennan company, International Thoroughbred Breeders, at one point proposed to redevelop the dilapidated property into a new casino, but those plans fell through. ”Among his bankruptcy fraud convictions, Brennan was found guilty of cashing in and failing to report as assets $525,000 in casino chips at the Mirage hotel-casino in Las Vegas -- just three weeks after filing for bankruptcy protection in 1995. ”Prosecutors were not able to prove Brennan had hoarded the casino chips despite testimony that he did not win them during a Labor Day weekend visit to Las Vegas with his girlfriend, soap opera actress Wanda Acuna.” |