Quattrone Appeals Conviction

by Glen Shapiro, LawAndTax-News.com, New York

01 February 2005

Former CSFB star banker, Frank Quattrone launched an appeal on Thursday against his obstruction of justice conviction, which resulted in an 18 month prison sentence (suspended pending the conclusion of his appeal).

In May 2004, Mr Quattrone was found guilty of two charges of obstruction of justice and one of witness tampering, over charges that in December 2000, he had attempted to hamper grand jury and regulatory investigations into the allocation of stocks in popular initial public offerings (IPOs) by forwarding and approving an e-mail advising CSFB staff to "clean up" their files.

However, the former investment banker's legal team last week argued that their client's case was an example of "what can happen when a routine e-mail is dissected out of context in the harsh glare of a courtroom".

They went on to suggest that Mr Quattrone had been made into a "poster boy for Wall Street misconduct", and further argued that misjudgements on the part of Judge Richard Owens regarding the evidence that the jury was permitted to see meant that: "Quattrone ran a strong risk of being unfairly lumped in with a bevy of Enron-era financial villains."

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