Broker Glantz Charged with Fraud in Innotrac Stock Scheme
                                   September 05, 2007

                                   Damian G. Guevara
                                   Plain Dealer Reporter

A securities broker faces criminal charges that he helped an investment fund manager steal $28 million from investors.

Stephen J. Glantz, 54, of Chagrin Falls, was indicted Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Cleveland on charges accusing him of securities fraud and making false statements to investigators.

Federal prosecutors say Glantz helped David Dadante, the founder and manager of the IPOF Fund, in a scheme that put $50 million in the hands of Dadante, who passed himself off as a financial wizard.

Glantz could not be reached Tuesday to comment on the charges.

Dadante used millions to pay for gambling trips, a Gates Mills house and other luxuries.  Dadante, 53, pleaded guilty last month to securities fraud.  A federal judge will sentence him in November.

The scheme involved manipulating the stock price of Innotrac, a small Georgia-based company. Glantz handled Dadante's accounts and used a variety of prohibited techniques to inflate the stock's value, according to the indictment.

Dadante, with Glantz's help, secretly amassed most of Innotrac's stock, the indictment said. Dadante in turn employed a Ponzi scheme to defraud his investors and kept them in the dark by supplying them with fake account documents. Agents arrested Dadante in March.

FBI agents and other federal investigators twice interviewed Glantz in 2006.  He denied doing anything illegal, according to the indictment.

                                   No Free Lunch
                                   September 11, 2007

                                   S.J. Caplan

                                   It shouldn't come as any surprise that there's no such thing as a free lunch.  Still, the fancyh invitations that arrive from investment firms requesting one's attendance at a posh function, promising both
a lovely lunch and financial success, can prove alluring.  Read More...

                                   An Advocate for the Individual Investor
                                   September 24, 2007

                                   Georges Yared

                                   Early in my career I worked for Dean Witter Reynolds, now Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS), and had the opportunity to get to know Brian Biggins.  Brian was a broker, an office branch manager and a compliance director in his 10-year stint with Dean Witter, until he went through a major career change.  He put himself through law school at the tender age of 31 and became an advocate for the aggrieved individual investor.

Biggins opened his own law practice in Cleveland, Ohio, but has represented investors in nearly all 50 states.
He works on behalf of investors who have been defrauded by unscrupulous brokers.  He has handled, and won, hundreds of cases ranging from $10,000 to multi-million dollar losses.  He has taken on almost every big Wall Street firm and insurance companies.  Many of these firms know to sit down at the settlement table rather than go to arbitration against Mr. Biggins.  What makes him so successful in helping investors who have been ripped off, defrauded or just plainly mismanaged by their brokers?

Biggins was in the securities industries for over a decade.  He knows exactly how big firms operate and where the bones are buried.  He can interrogate a broker or the other firm's counsel like no one else because Biggins was "one of them."  Firms know that they cannot throw a fast ball past him because of his vast knowledge and experience in the industry.  A true advocate for the individual investor.

Stock market and other investments carry a degree of risk. Many times however, the risks are not properly explained or divulged to the individual investor. Understanding a client's suitability is a critical component before any investment should be recommended. Biggins understands that point as he managed client assets worth many millions of dollars before changing careers.

I ran into Biggins this past week and we caught up on old times.  When I asked him how his practice was going, he just shook his head and said, "Still too many bad guys out there hurting innocent investors."  Biggins has explained many times to clients and potential clients that it is vital that they ask as many questions as they can before investing in any security.  Responsibility is a two-way street.  But where he draws the line is when he sees clients wholly taken advantage of and invested in unsuitable securities.  He is especially vigilant when it comes
to the abuses of elderly investors and their retirement assets.

Biggins recently won a case for a newly-widowed young woman with three children who lost $300,000.  She was taken advantage of by a horrible broker who fled the country for awhile.  Brian worked with the FBI in securing his return and in a happy turn of events was able to recover the widow's money.

Most broker/advisers are good, hard working honest people who do a great job for their clients. But for the bad apples out there, beware of Brian Biggins...

                                   Look Before You Leave:
                                   Don't Be Misled By Early Retirement Investment Pitches That Promise Too Much
                                   September 14, 2006

                                   Early retirement is an alluring prospect.  When faced with a pitch that promises that
                                   you can cash in your company retirement savings in your 50s, reinvest the money, and live comfortably off the proceeds for the rest of your life, many simply can't say no.  But usually they should.  NASD is issuing this Investor Alert because we are aware of instances in which employees who had built up sizeable retirement savings have been misled, and financially harmed, by flawed, even fraudulent, early-retirement investment schemes.  Read More...



                     Please contact our office with any questions concerning losses in your account.

                                   Investment Advisor Indicted
                                   April 9, 2009

                                   Tim Botos

                                   A local broker dealer is accused of using an assumed identity in operating his financial advising business.  Joseph D. Bonanno of Jackson Township, who portrayed himself as Timothy W. Hyde, is charged with one count of wire fraud and two counts of making false statements. An indictment was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court.

The 47-year-old Bonanno operated a Belden Village-area firm known most recently as Hyde Financial.  According to the indictment, he attempted to defraud regulators such as the Securities and Exchange Commission by submitting filings under the name Timothy W. Hyde. He is accused of providing an incorrect birthdate of Feb. 3, 1970, and a Social Security number that did not belong to him.  The real Timothy W. Hyde had died in 1976.  Bonanno’s birthdate is actually May 7, 1961.

In addition to federal charges, Bonnano faces two pending counts of felony larceny from Boston, Mass., in 1988.  Four years later, after returning to Ohio, Bonanno sought and obtained a Social Security number in the name of Timothy W. Hyde. In 2001, he became a broker dealer, falsely representing his identity, the indictment alleges.

Bonanno’s attorney, Ian N. Friedman of Cleveland, said his client will voluntarily appear for an initial hearing in an Akron federal court. Friedman said Bonanno has been a contributing member of the Stark County community.  A date for his court appearance has not yet been scheduled.

                                   Joe Bonanno or Mr. Hyde?
                                   April 18, 2009

                                   Tim Botos

                                   If Timothy Welland Hyde is good at one thing, it's selling. With slick, tightly cropped black hair and round dark eyes, a voice for radio and a warm smile, he welcomed clients to his financial advising business in Jackson Township. For a variety of fees and commissions, he and employees arranged client investments in stocks and securities. By all appearances, Hyde Financial was a success. It was located in Suite 302 on the third floor of one of the area’s premier office buildings, known as the Belden Village glass tower.

At work, Hyde is regarded as a financial genius and brilliant mathematician. He not only handled his own clients, but he also served as a guru to a handful of his other brokers, who together managed at least $63 million in client assets.

"He made money for me," said 66-year-old Joan Kinsley of Lake Township, a client and retiree from R.C.A. Rubber Co. "He was always bragging about having Internet access to trading information that only he and the Timken Co. had."

A married father of two, Hyde and his family lived in a half-million dollar home in Jackson's Carrington Estates. He drives a 2008 black Cadillac Escalade and wears Rolex watches, fancy suits and shoes on his 6-foot, 195-pound frame. Image, he told people, matters. Look successful and clients will invest with you, he'd say.

His safe and seemingly well-to-do world, though, was merely a mask. In the past four months, pieces of his disguise slowly eroded, exposing bits of his true identity.

There's much more to Hyde. He kept secrets. Some from his clients. Others he kept from those who knew him personally.

Eleven days ago, federal authorities indicted him on three criminal charges — wire fraud and two counts of making false statements.

At the heart of the government's allegations: Hyde isn’t 33 years old or 40 years old. He has used two different birth dates since moving to the Akron-Canton area in the early 1990s. His Social Security number didn't belong to him.

Turns out, Hyde may have been the ultimate salesman. He had actually sold himself as someone he wasn't.

In the indictment, federal prosecutors say Timothy Welland Hyde isn't really Timothy Welland Hyde. His real name, they contend, is Joseph Dino Bonanno. He's actually 47 years old.

"So, I got a fake ID 25 years ago. I changed my name. What's the big deal, so what?" he said in a brief interview last week.

Aside from the identity switch, he said, he did nothing wrong. His firm never stole a dime from anyone, he added. "It was a good company, where old people can go with their money, instead of going to the nefarious people who are in this type of business."

So who exactly is Joseph Dino Bonanno, and why the charade?

Although he shares a name with the late notorious Mafia kingpin Joseph “Joe Bananas” Bonanno, he’s not a lineal descendant of the crime family.

This Joseph Bonanno is the first-born son of Robert and Fatima Bonanno. He was born May 7, 1961, in Youngstown, along with a twin sister. He also has two younger brothers.

Bonanno grew up on Bonnie Brae Avenue in Niles, in Trumbull County, in a home where his mother still lives. He and his sister graduated from Warren JFK, a Catholic high school, in 1979, the same year their parents divorced. He then attended Ohio State University.

In later years, he'd tell people he was a proud Buckeye graduate, but there's no record of a Joseph Bonanno or Timothy Hyde ever earning a degree at the school. While a student, he met Laurie Lynn Simonson, an Akron girl. On Sept. 14, 1985, the two were married.

The newly wed Bonannos moved to East Walpole, Mass., a small town about 18 miles south of Boston. He got a taste of the discount furniture sales business, which he'd later pursue again in Ohio under his assumed identity.

On Dec. 15, 1988, he was arrested in nearby Dorchester, Mass. Charged with larceny (theft), he was accused of stealing $1,571.76 from First American Bank. He fled before standing trial on the felony. To this day, officials in Suffolk County, Mass., hold a warrant for Bonanno’s arrest.

The couple, who had no children, returned to Ohio. Laurie Lynn filed for divorce in 1990. She remarried a year later. She declined an interview for this story.

After the divorce, all outward traces of Joseph Bonanno vanished. No records to be found of a driver's license, work history, club memberships, home addresses or dealings with local courts. It was as if Joseph Dino Bonanno had disappeared.

But as abruptly as Joseph Bonanno became invisible, Timothy Welland Hyde appeared in Northeast Ohio in 1991 with only a sketchy background. Armed with a freshly issued Social Security number and a clean start, Bonanno became Hyde.

It's unclear why he selected that name or how he came upon it. Perhaps, he picked it out of an old newspaper obituary, because Hyde was a real person.

In Maple Grove Cemetery in Ashtabula County, a 90-minute drive northeast from Stark County, lie the remains of the real Timothy Welland Hyde.

Born prematurely on Feb. 3, 1976, in Greenville, Pa., the baby died nine days later at Youngstown's Tod Children's Hospital. He was laid to rest between two stillborn brothers in clearly marked graves. His father, Terry Welland Hyde, doesn't know a Joseph Bonanno. He said he doesn't know why the man assumed his dead son's identity.

"Crazy, bizarre... to even digest," said Terry Hyde of Farmdale in Trumbull County, explaining that the name Welland was a family name handed down over generations.

Whatever the reason, Bonanno kept his true identity secret for the next 18 years. In requests for interviews for this story, family members in Trumbull County denied knowing a Timothy Hyde. His father even denied having a son named Joseph Bonanno.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he said.

Bonanno's identity remained hidden despite frequent run-ins with the law, civil lawsuits against him, his submissions of piles of business and government regulatory papers to various state and federal agencies, a second marriage and birth of two children, and even a pair of elongated trips through U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

All of it accomplished under his assumed name, Timothy Hyde.

Or variations of it.

On occasion, he simply used the name Timothy Welland, without Hyde at the end. He apparently obtained driver's licenses or state ID cards with two birth dates — one of Feb. 3, 1970, the other of Feb. 3, 1976.

He gave Jackson Township police each birth date on citations they issued to him six months apart in 2002. The first for not controlling a loose dog at his Ranier Avenue NW home. The second for driving under the influence of alcohol while causing a hit-skip auto accident.

In all, he accumulated at least five DUIs from law enforcement agencies in Stark and Summit counties.

Though he always avoided serious jail time and kept his identity under wraps, it was Jackson Township police who years later would bring Hyde’s secrets to light.

Leaving his criminal past in Massachusetts and with the new Hyde identity, he moved to Akron in the early 1990s. He met and married Lisa (Pearsall) Reynolds. They wed in Las Vegas on June 22, 1995, her 33rd birthday.

On a marriage application, he claimed it was his first marriage. He declared Feb. 3, 1970, as his birth date. He named his parents as Timothy Hyde and Mary Hartman.

In Ohio, Hyde created Mattress and Furniture Liquidators and Sleep Warehouse. By the late 1990s, the business had grown. He boasted a handful of the discount retail furniture outlets near Hills Department Store on Route 62 in Canton, as well as in Akron, Garfield Heights, Brookpark, Cleveland and Youngstown.

However, a string of unpaid bills began to compound. The furniture business, corporate owner Hyde Industries, and his related advertising and marketing companies accumulated a trail of debt — owing money to everyone from a furniture supplier in Atlanta to local TV and newspapers for overdue advertising accounts.

His mother-in-law, Elaine Parker, said Hyde put her name and Social Security number on papers related to the business without her knowledge. It wasn't even until the last few months, she said, that she learned his real name is Joseph Bonanno.

"He's a professional con man, in my opinion," she said.

In 1999, the furniture business filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy, liquidating and closing. A year later, he personally filed for bankruptcy. It didn’t take long, though, for Hyde to reinvent himself professionally, as a financial adviser.

He passed two securities exams in 2001 to become a stockbroker. It's a profession that's difficult to break into with bankruptcies in your background. Had anyone known about his pending larceny count, it would have been impossible.

He worked from local offices as an adviser and independent stockbroker, selling securities and related financial products for AXA Advisors of New York, then Intersecurities of Florida and finally Cadaret, Grant & Co., of Syracuse, N.Y.

Mailing fliers to targeted customer niches, Hyde offered free dinner seminars to prospective clients at local restaurants such as Hartville Kitchen, Ken Stewart's Grille and 356th Fighter Group.

It's a general practice the national Financial Industry Regulatory Authority warned brokerage firms to monitor closely as long ago as 2007. Such seminars, FINRA noted, often turned into high-pressure sales pitches littered with outlandish promises on financial returns for clients.

A Rocky River attorney, Neil Petkovic, has taken a long look at Hyde in recent months. Petkovic works for a law firm that specializes in stockbroker misconduct cases. He represents a pair of clients in their 70s who invested with Hyde. He expects to take on more in the near future.

Hyde's business practices, he said, included plenty of red flags, from the free dinner seminars to questionable investment advice. Hyde, he explained, practiced holistic financial planning, an approach that examines a client's complete financial picture from cradle to grave. There's nothing wrong with that, per se.

"But for an unscrupulous broker, it's a shopping list," Petkovic said, adding that his senior citizen clients, who owned their home outright, were encouraged to get a second mortgage so they’d have more money to invest.

Read the full story here

                                   Scams Heighten Need to Protect Investments
                                   April 20, 2009

                                   Kathy Ames Carr
                                   Crain's Cleveland Business

It's a mix of inexperience and greed that leads to investment fraud, as was recently the case with Bernie Madoff, and at a more local level, Frank Gruttadauria.

These brokers bilked their investor clients for millions, and as a result, were convicted and put in jail.

Their cases are a reminder that investors can never be too cautious, say local financial professionals. While most financial planners and brokers have their clients' best interests at heart, others let greed circumvent their client obligations.

"If it sounds too good to be true, it is," said William Russo, president of the Financial Planning Association of North East Ohio. Many people invested with Mr. Madoff, and they knew it was illicit, but cooperated because of the returns he promised, Mr. Russo said.

"Con artists look for people who have money and are a little dishonest and greedy," said Douglas Kahl, professor of business and international finance at the University of Akron. "If you fit this profile, you have a bull's-eye on your forehead. People are out there looking for you."

While it's impossible for clients to completely insulate themselves from investment fraud, there are some strategies investors can employ to minimize risk, local financial professionals say.

Mr. Madoff's business was set up so he was in control of investors' money at all levels, making it easier to manipulate the system. He owned and controlled all entities involved, Mr. Russo said, so there were no safeguards in place.

If investors are dealing with an independent adviser, he or she should be working with a third party custodian handling the assets.

"There's very little probability of manipulation from their adviser with a third party holding the assets," Mr. Russo said.

Financial professionals advise that investors should be aware of their portfolio's performance relative to the market. They must be skeptical if an adviser promises consistently positive returns, even when the market is down. "If the stock market is down, you would expect an equity-oriented fund to be down,” said Edward Matuszak, senior vice president, portfolio manager at CapitalWorks Lakefront Partners in Cleveland.

Taking charge

The old rules of trusting the neighbor's financial planner because he's a "nice guy" are out the window, so investors who are looking for someone to manage their money should consult a fee-based financial planner, Dr. Kahl said. A fee-based financial planner charges clients to manage their portfolios but doesn't benefit from their recommendations.

"One of the most costly decisions is a free financial plan," Dr. Kahl said. "Those advisers make their money based on their investment decisions and how they'll benefit."

Clients also should diversify their investments rather than placing all their bets on one stock, he said.  One common reason many frustrated investors want to sue their brokers is because they say they never received a so-called "financial physical," in which an adviser evaluates criteria including a client's risk tolerance, investment goals and net worth, before their brokers invested all their money, said Brian Biggins, a securities litigator with Rocky River-based Brian P. Biggins & Associates Co.

The brokers, then, may have invested their clients' money based on their own interests.

"I'm seeing people in their 80s and 90s with 100% of their assets invested in equities," such as stocks, he said. There's a financial incentive to do so. Brokers get paid more when people buy equities rather than fixed income products, such as certificates of deposit and treasuries.

"You don't need a college degree to be a broker," said Mr. Biggins, who used to be a broker. "It's mostly a sales job."

Because many brokers lack a background in economics and finance, some make investment decisions with little experience, he said.

Investors, therefore, must be wary, and if they have a financial planner, they should keep the lines of communication open and regularly meet.

"One to four times a year would be normal," said Mitchell Frankel, a financial adviser with Lakeside Wealth Management Group of Wachovia Securities LLC in Pepper Pike. "It depends on the needs of the particular client, the complexity of the portfolio; changes in the plans or circumstances of the client; the risk tolerance of the client and the volatility of the market.

"Some clients are happy to meet once a year and communicate via the phone, mail or e-mail. Others prefer to meet face to face more frequently."

                                   Financial adviser jailed in Massachusetts
                                   April 27, 2009

                                   Tim Botos
                                   Canton Repository

A Jackson Township man, who lived under an assumed identity for 18 years, is in a Massachusetts jail.

The man known locally as Timothy Welland Hyde, a financial adviser, had been indicted by a federal grand jury three weeks ago. He was to appear in U.S. District Court in Akron on Wednesday, to be formally charged with wire fraud and making false statements.

That court date had to be pushed back until June 4 because he’s now being detained in the Boston area.

Hyde, whose real name is Joseph D. Bonanno, voluntarily went to Massachusetts last week to surrender on a handful of felony larceny charges. Authorities there have held arrest warrants for him dating to 20 years ago — when he fled while on bond and came to Ohio, then assumed the identity of a dead baby.

Bonanno, with one of his attorneys Neil Tassel, surrendered in Middlesex Superior Court on April 21, on four counts of larceny (theft) and one count of uttering (forgery-related). Judge Sandra Hamlin sent the 47-year-old Bonanno to Cambridge Jail, where he’s held on a $200,000 cash bond.

HIGH BOND

It’s not what he or his attorney expected.

“I think it’s fair to say ... we were surprised at how high it was,” Tassel said, adding that he’ll probably ask for another hearing on the bond amount. Bonanno is to appear in court there again on May 20.

Tassel said authorities there continue tracking old records to determine what kind of case they have. Bonanno also faces a pending larceny charge from nearby Dorchester, Mass. All the allegations, Tassel said, are related to Bonanno’s failed Boston-area furniture business, AFW Liquidators.

Tassel said the charges stem from creditors who weren’t paid and customers who never received furniture.

Bonanno, who grew up in Trumbull County, landed in the Akron-Canton area in 1991. He assumed the Hyde name. He acquired a new social security number and used two different dates of birth, portraying himself as 9 or 15 years younger than his actual age. He married for a second time and had two children.

After bankrupting himself and a mattress and furniture liquidating business in northeast Ohio, Bonanno became a stockbroker in 2001.

BUSINESS CONTINUES

He founded Hyde Financial, an advising firm located in the Belden Village Tower, where he represented two different brokerage firms over the years. He voluntarily parted ways with both, each time after he’d been accused of ethical or regulatory violations against the firms and his customers.

In recent weeks, Hyde Financial, with more than 900 clients who’d invested $63 million in assets, changed its name to Helios Investments.

In an interview three weeks ago, Bonanno said he no longer was involved with the business. However, the majority owner of newly-formed Helios is Robert J. Bonanno (the same name as his 73-year-old father), according to a regulatory application submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Bridget M. Brennan, who’s prosecuting the federal charges, filed requests in court to have Bonanno returned for his Akron court date on June 4.

She also issued an arrest warrant, which will keep Bonanno in federal custody, if he’s able to post bond in Massachusetts.

                                   Police: Man stole dead child’s name
                                   April 25, 2009

                                   Darcie Loreno
                                   Tribune Chronicle

NILES - Robert Bonanno of Niles said he hasn't had regular contact with his 47-year-old son, Joseph, for years.

Terry Hyde of Farmdale lost his son, Timothy Welland, just days after his birth in 1976.

Federal prosecutors say a former Niles man has been living under both names for years after a run-in with the law back in 1988. He faces federal charges of wire fraud and filing false statements about his identity as a stockbroker and investment adviser in Canton.

"We had a falling out a long time ago," said Robert Bonanno, of his son, Joseph, now 47. "He was young and messed up when he was about 20 years old. He got in some trouble and he changed his (identity)."

Joseph Bonanno was born May 7, 1961. Robert Bonanno, of Niles, said his son grew up in Niles and graduated from Warren JFK in 1979. He moved away when he was about 18, and lived in Massachusetts, for a while where he was charged with two counts of larceny in connection with a bank theft in 1988.

According to federal court records, Joseph Bonanno obtained a new social security number in 1992 under the name of Timothy Welland Hyde, the same name of a Farmdale baby who had died in the hospital Feb. 12, 1976, nine days after his birth. The baby had not been issued a social security number, court records said, and is buried at Maple Grove Cemetery in Ashtabula County.

Terry Hyde, Timothy Hyde's father who still lives in Farmdale, did not return calls for comment for this story. His brother-in-law, James Powell, did call the Tribune to verify the story was being written and that a reporter had called for comment. He said Hyde wasn't aware his son's identity had been taken until contacted by reporters just before the charges were filed.  Read More...

                                   Prosecutors: Businessman Joseph Dino Bonanno, 48, hid criminal past by using
                                   dead infant's identity
                                   June 5, 2009

                                   Peter Krouse
                                   The Plain Dealer

He was born Joseph Dino Bonanno 48 years ago, but for the past 17 years, he has gone by the name Timothy Hyde.

That includes the eight years he ran Hyde Financial Investments in Canton, dispensing advice and trading securities on behalf of clients.

But shortly after Christmas, the deception began to unravel. Police were summoned to Hyde's Jackson Township home for a domestic dispute. They arrested Hyde and charged him with domestic violence. They took his fingerprints.

When those prints were checked against a national database, police discovered Hyde was actually Bonanno, wanted on larceny charges in Massachusetts going back to 1989.

The real Timothy Welland Hyde, it turned out, was an infant who died in Youngstown in 1976.

Federal prosecutors said Bonanno assumed Hyde's identity to help cover up his criminal past. They indicted Bonanno on April 8, accusing him of deceiving state and federal regulators, including the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and the Ohio Division of Securities.

Bonanno, wearing shackles and orange prison garb, pleaded not guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court in Akron. When asked for his name and age, he responded: "Joseph Dino Bonanno, 48."

"I find it hard to believe that he flew under the radar that long," said Brian Biggins, a Rocky River lawyer who is representing several of Bonanno's former clients and is suing Bonanno's former employer.

What Biggins finds most curious is how Hyde got licensed by the Ohio Division of Securities. He would have had to submit fingerprints as part of the application.  Read More...

                                   Members of U.S. House Financial Services Committee snapped up or dumped
                                   bank stocks as bottom fell out of market
                                   June 25, 2009

                                   Stephen Koff and Sabrina Eaton
                                   The Plain Dealer

WASHINGTON -- As financial markets tumbled and the government worked to stave off panic by pumping billions of dollars into banks last fall, several members of Congress who oversee the banking industry were grabbing up or dumping bank stocks.

Anticipating bargains or profits or just trying to unload before the bottom fell out, these members of the House Financial Services Committee or brokers on their behalf were buying and selling stocks including Bank of America and Citigroup -- some of the very corporations their committee would later rap for greed, a Plain Dealer examination of congressional stock market transactions shows.

Financial disclosure records show that some of these Financial Services Committee members, including Ohio Rep. Charlie Wilson, made bank stock trades on the same day the banks were getting a government bailout from a program Congress approved. The transactions may not have been illegal or against congressional rules, but securities attorneys and congressional watchdog groups say they raise flags about the appearance of conflicts of interest.

"I don't think that any of these people should be owning these types of financial instruments," said Brian Biggins, a Cleveland securities lawyer and former stock brokerage manager. "I'm not saying they shouldn't be in the stock market. But if they're on the banking committee and trading in these kinds of stocks, I don't think that's right."  Read More...

                                   Former financial adviser Joseph Bonanno headed to prison for identity theft
                                   August 6, 2009

                                   Tim Botos
                                   The Canton Repository

AKRON — With black hair containing only wisps of gray, and tight-skinned facial features behind his eyeglasses, Joseph D. Bonanno could pass for a man in his early 30s.

The 48-year-old had played the role of a younger man, named Timothy W. Hyde, for more than a decade — until authorities caught on.

In April, federal prosecutors indicted the former Jackson Township financial adviser on a handful of crimes, accusing him of assuming the identity of a dead baby, beginning in 1992. On Thursday, in U.S. District Court, Bonanno changed his plea to guilty and admitted to the allegations against him.

He'll be sentenced Oct. 22.

Bonnano faces a mandatory two years in prison on one charge and extra time for the others. He'll likely face a total of about four years in prison, according to a plea agreement, though Judge John R. Adams has the authority to impose a different sentence.
Read More...