Wall Street scion Caspersen gets four years in prison for $38

million fraud
Wall Street scion Caspersen gets 4 years in prison for $38.5 million fraud
By Nate Raymond
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former Wall Street executive Andrew Caspersen was sentenced on Friday to
four years in prison for engaging in what prosecutors say was a Ponzi-like scheme to defraud
investors including family members and friends out of $38.5 million.
Caspersen, who worked at a unit of investment banker Paul Taubman's PJT Partners Inc before his
arrest in March, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan after pleading guilty
to charges including securities fraud.
Prosecutors sought up to 15-2/3 years in prison for the Princeton University and Harvard Law
School graduate, who they said for 18 months shamelessly exploited his victims' trust.
But Paul Shechtman, his lawyer, urged Rakoff to consider as a mitigating factor Caspersen's
"pathological" gambling addiction that led him to obtain millions of dollars to engage in risky options
trading.
"I was willing to do anything to continue, and eventually I did," Caspersen, 40, said in court.
After hearing from testimony from an expert in gambling addition, Rakoff agreed Caspersen's
condition impacted his decision making. He called the lengthy prison term prosecutors pushed
"absurd."
"No purpose will be served by letting him rot in prison for years on end," said Rakoff, who is
expected to order restitution at a later date.
Caspersen, the son of late Wall Street financier Finn M.W. Caspersen, had worked at Park Hill
Group since 2013. The advisory firm was spun off from private equity group Blackstone Group LP
last year and is now part of PJT Partners.
Prosecutors said beginning in 2014, Caspersen sought to defraud over a dozen investors including
his mother, a brother and friends by claiming he would use their funds to make loans to private
equity firms, generating annual returns of 15 to 20 percent.
Instead, prosecutors said he used the $38.5 million he raised to make options trades, to pay earlier
investors and to replace over $8 million he misappropriated from Park Hill, which Caspersen said
during his July guilty plea he used for gambling.

In total, he tried to raise over $150 million, prosecutors said.

His victims included a foundation affiliated with hedge fund Moore Capital Management and one of
the fund's employees, who together were cheated out of $25 million, prosecutors said.

He was arrested in March at a New York airport after returning from a trip to Florida. Just before
that, he had drafted a suicide note to his wife and letter to his creditors saying he was "deeply
ashamed," court papers said.

The case is U.S. v. Caspersen, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 16-cr-00414.
(Editing by Matthew Lewis, Bernard Orr)