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Frank Quattrone guilty on all counts
Jury finds former star tech banker guilty of obstructing justice, witness tampering while at CSFB.
May 3, 2004: 4:44 PM EDT

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Frank Quattrone, the former investment banker who helped take some of the hottest names of the tech boom public, was found guilty Monday in his retrial on charges of obstructing justice and witnessing tampering.

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Jury finds Quattrone guilty in his obstruction of justice and witness tampering trial. CNNfn's Chris Huntington reports.

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The jury of six men and six women took two days to find the ex-Credit Suisse First Boston investment banker guilty of all three counts against him.

The jurors found that Quattrone tried to block investigations by regulators and a grand jury when he forwarded an e-mail in late 2000 urging colleagues to "clean-up" their files.

The decision came after Quattrone's first trial ended in a hung jury in October, with jurors reportedly deadlocked on the charges against the ex-investment banker, who helped bringing Netscape Communications, Amazon.com and dozens of other companies public.

Quattrone, 48, could face up to 25 years in prison, but federal guidelines would likely reduce the prison term to one or two years.

"We are obviously grossly disappointed. I feel like we failed Frank," Quattrone's attorney, John Keker, told reporters outside the Manhattan federal courthouse where his two trials took place in the past 6 months, according to Reuters.

"He's innocent," added Keker. The lawyer also told reporters he plans to appeal.

Quattrone was among the first bankers to see the coming technology bonanza and once generated so much revenue and buzz he had his own press team, according to Reuters.

But, by late 2000, the market for hot stock offerings had dried up and investigators began looking at whether shares of the most popular initial public offerings had been doled out to hedge funds by CSFB in exchange for kickbacks.

He left the company under pressure last year.

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U.S. v. Frank Quattrone

Quattrone's former employer, CSFB, a division of Switzerland's Credit Suisse Group, said it had "no comment" on the verdict.

The former head of CSFB's technology group showed no emotion as the verdict was read, according to Reuters. He is due to be sentenced Sept. 8, the news agency reported.

In closing arguments last week, Assistant U.S. Attorney David Anders said Quattrone knew that he and his unit were likely targets in the various investigations into how CSFB doled out shares of companies going public and that he knew one was a criminal investigation.

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Anders told the jury that Quattrone had the motivation to foil the investigations because he knew any negative charges would dramatically hurt the firm and his own standing.

He said Quattrone was a highly paid professional who earned $120 million in 2000, upending the defense's argument that he didn't remember the investigations at the time he sent the e-mail.

But Quattrone's defense stuck to its guns, saying he didn't make the connection between the e-mail he sent out telling employees to delete files and the ongoing investigations into CSFB's IPO allocations.

CSFB agreed in 2001 to pay $100 million to settle allegations of abuses in how it allocated shares of hot IPOs.  Top of page




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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.