{"id":26990,"date":"2023-04-27T22:04:34","date_gmt":"2023-04-27T22:04:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/ex-cfo-gets-3-years\/"},"modified":"2023-04-27T22:08:55","modified_gmt":"2023-04-27T22:08:55","slug":"ex-cfo-gets-3-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/ex-cfo-gets-3-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-CFO gets 3 years prison for stealing from SPACs to trade meme stocks, cryptocurrencies"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Luc Cohen<\/p>\n

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A former chief financial officer of multiple special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) was sentenced to three years in prison on Thursday for embezzling more than $5 million from them, and losing almost all of it trading meme stocks and cryptocurrencies.<\/p>\n

Cooper Morgenthau, 36, of Fernandina Beach, Florida, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in January.<\/p>\n

He was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer in Manhattan federal court. Morgenthau also agreed to forfeit $5.11 million in money earned from the scheme and pay an equal amount in restitution. He previously settled related U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission civil charges.<\/p>\n

Authorities said that between June 2021 and August 2022, Morgenthau stole more than $1.2 million from African Gold Acquisition Corp, concealed the theft by falsifying its account statements, and spent or lost all of it in securities trading.<\/p>\n

To cover his losses, Morgenthau then raised $4.7 million from investors in a SPAC known as Strategic Metals Acquisition Corp., only to lose most of it through crypto trading, the SEC said.<\/p>\n

African Gold, which is based in New York and was created to buy a gold mining business, had raised $414 million in a Feb. 2021 initial public offering.<\/p>\n

It fired Morgenthau last August after he ran out of money and vendors refused to work for the company, the SEC said.<\/p>\n

African Gold said at the time it terminated Morgenthau after learning about his “improper withdrawals” and attempts to conceal them.<\/p>\n

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan recommended a prison term shorter than six years, citing Morgenthau’s acceptance of responsibility.<\/p>\n

Morgenthau’s lawyers sought probation, saying it was the best way for him to earn money to pay restitution.<\/p>\n

\n

(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York, editing by Deepa Babington)<\/p>\n

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By Luc Cohen NEW YORK (Reuters) – A former chief financial officer of multiple special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) was sentenced to three years in prison on Thursday for embezzling more than $5 million from them, and losing almost all of it trading meme stocks and cryptocurrencies. Cooper Morgenthau, 36, of Fernandina Beach, Florida, pleaded […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":26991,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1213],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-26990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-business","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3Q116-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26990"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26992,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26990\/revisions\/26992"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}