Word: sec
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...indictments say that by October, as the presidential election neared, Vesco was threatening that he would disclose the secret payment unless stiffer action was taken to delay or halt the SEC inquiry. Sears phoned Mitchell to pass on the threat. In November, presumably just before the election, Vesco sent a memorandum to Donald Nixon, the President's brother.* In the memo, Vesco again warned that he would reveal the details of the contribution unless all the SEC charges were dropped...
Finally, on Jan. 31, almost three months after Nixon's victory and two months after the SEC issued its fraud charges against Vesco, the re-election committee returned the money. Perhaps by coincidence, the Washington Star-News reported five days before that the Government had begun an investigation into the donation. The probe began when an unidentified witness came forward in Manhattan earlier in January and volunteered to U.S. Attorney Whitney North Seymour Jr. that he would tell about the transaction...
...Vesco, he has defied an order to appear before the grand jury, and a bench warrant was issued for his arrest. The SEC fraud suit is now before the courts; it seeks to halt further plundering from Investors Overseas Services. If this civil action is successful, the decision could well become the basis for a criminal suit against Vesco. Meanwhile, he is believed to be living in comfort in Costa Rica (see BUSINESS) and planning to become a citizen of that country...
Vesco's biggest problem is his increasingly tarnished reputation. Though he denies any wrongdoing, the SEC charges that he and his associates looted $224 million from four I.O.S.-managed funds, selling off gilt-edged stocks and stashing the money in various banks and dummy firms controlled by him or his associates. The commission's case to halt further alleged plundering of the funds is now before the courts...
Costa Rica has the potential of becoming a kind of financial Shangri-La for Vesco, and he has taken pains to win over some of the country's most powerful politicians. According to the SEC, one of the I.O.S. funds, IIT, has made an unsecured loan of $2,150,000 to Sociedad Agricola y Industrial San Cristobal, a firm founded and still partly owned by Costa Rican President José ("Don Pepe") Figueres. Says Figueres: "Vesco's investments here are very secure and creative. I can't understand the fuss." I.O.S.'s Fund of Funds allegedly...