Quogue Mayor, George Motz, Indicted for Securities Fraud
The mayor of Quogue, an upscale East End village in New York city, was indicted recently on charges of securities fraud and impeding a federal investigation by altering his firm’s documents. Mayor George Motz was charged with illegally earning $1.3 million for his investment firm, Melhado, Flynn & Associates, by cherry picking the more profitable stock trades his firm made. He would pick the better returns for the firm’s own account and assign the less profitable ones to other customers.
Motz owned 9% of the firm and was president, chief operating officer, executive committee chairman and the compliance officer. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil charges against Motz in 2007 that were similar to the ones filed by federal prosecutors in late August.
In one scheme, between November 2002 and September 2003, Motz retroactively credited profitable stock trades to his firm and unprofitable ones to a hedge fund called Third Millennium, the indictment said. The fund’s partners were “primarily high-net-worth individuals,” according to the indictment.
Between November 200 and September 2003, Motz assigned 203 of his trades to the firm. 202 of those were profitable.