Authors: Tom Connolly
Crane’s brain raced. They knew more. If they knew he was not working, then they had to have been watching him for some time.
“What are you saying, Detective, that it’s against the law to own shares of stock if you don’t have a job,” Crane said, somewhat pleased with his response.
“No, Mr. Crane. I’m suggesting you have no way to pay for the shares if they don’t rise. So obviously you felt very confident the stock was going to rise very soon,” Conroy said, now moving a bit closer across the table that was not more than four feet wide, causing Crane some discomfort with movement into his personal space and causing him to pull back. “I want to know why you felt this stock would rise soon, as it did to $14.50, two days after you purchased the last of the shares, and one day before you sold all of them for a profit of almost 150 thousand dollars.”
He needed to think fast. This cop was ahead of him, and he didn’t know how far.
“I have resources of my own, Detective Conroy, and it is not unusual to be out of work for a few weeks as you switch between firms in New York,” again he was pleased with his quick thinking, but he was running low on answers.
“Mr. Crane, the total cash in all of your accounts other than those containing profits from Rocket Solar is eighty thousand dollars. Hardly the wherewithal needed to cover if your bets on Rocket Solar went bad,” Conroy said, and once again leaning into Lenny the Liar’s space, “So, Mr. Crane, we don’t have to approach our concerns with you this way.”
“What’s that supposed to mean,” an upset Crane replied, not sure what would happen next.
“It means I said I have information that you engaged in insider trading. I shared some of the obvious information that caused us to look into you and your actions. We are hoping that you will cooperate with us on this investigation,” Conroy said, thinking that this would be like pulling teeth to get Crane to open up. He would have to offer up the next morsel of evidence and see if Crane would start to crack.
At this point, Angella Sgorous, the SEC investigator in the room who had sat silently observing Crane, spoke, as Conroy and she had agreed beforehand.
“Mr. Crane, may I call you Leonard?” Angella Sgorous said.
“Yes, please,” Crane replied with half a smile.
“Thank you, Leonard. As Detective Conroy has shared with you, we have been investigating trading in Rocket Solar for some time. Right now we cannot share all of the information we have with you, but we can say that your phone records in the week before your trades did show us you were talking to some of the same people we had been investigating. In fact it was those phone records that led us to get a judge to allow us to tap your phones. In the days prior to your trades and after, we have recorded conversations of you talking with others that confirm you were trading on inside information. This is a felony crime, punishable by up to twenty-five years in prison,” Ms. Sgorous said, pausing to pour a glass of water. “Would you like one, Leonard?”
“Yes, please,” Crane said dryly, so dryly it was only then he realized his mouth was totally without moisture and that he was sweating profusely. He reached in his pocket and with a handkerchief wiped his brow.
“As I was saying, these are serious crimes you are involved in,” and she paused, taking a slow drink of water.
Crane was boiling inside, sweat poured from his pores, he could feel the back of his shirt soaked, sticking to the chair. He needed to get out of this situation.
“I want my attorney here,” Crane said, exhausted.
“We can call your attorney, but once we do, the phase of cooperating witness is over. You will be arrested and charged with felony insider trading,” Sgorous said.
“Or,” Detective Conroy said, jumping back in, “you can use your head and tell us what you know about this whole scheme.”
“What will happen if I am able to recall some other details?” Crane said.
“Well, depending on how helpful you are, we can recommend to the judge a lighter sentence,” Conroy said.
“A lighter sentence! If I help you in this, there should be no sentence,” a red-faced Crane said, now upset that he was being played.
“Mr. Crane, we have more than enough evidence to convict you and a number of others for insider trading in Rocket Solar. These crimes are being committed by you and others, and we have it recorded in your own words. We have other individuals we expect will cooperate. The first ones to cooperate get the softer deal. It just makes our job a little easier if we can have someone telling the story from your point of view, and for that we are willing to recommend leniency,” and again leaning across the table, Conroy’s and Crane’s noses were not more than a foot apart. Crane wanted to rip his head off. The bulldog instinct in him wanted to rear up and crush this intruder, this accuser. “So, Leonard,” Conroy said, sarcastically, staring him down, “What’ll it be, your lawyer or a little help for us to put the big fish away.”
That part appealed to Leonard. It wasn’t him; it was the others. If the two brothers hadn’t been so greedy and put this plan in place, he wouldn’t be here. If Alice hadn’t called him and told him about what their old boss Sid Rogers was up to, he wouldn’t be here. If Parker Barnes and Kish Moira hadn’t agreed to his plan to the insider trading, he wouldn’t be here. In fact if Eddie hadn’t got so high and mighty, he’d still be working at Brunswick and wouldn’t have gotten fired.
“Yes,” Crane said, “It does make sense to help you, but,” he decided to try again, “if I give you everything, no jail time.”
“Mr. Crane, we already have everything,” Angella Sgorous said, emphasizing “everything.” “Now can we get on with it? Please tell us how your involvement in Rocket Solar began, what was said and what you told others.”
Leonard Crane slumped. He found himself trapped. He had to do the best he could for himself.
“Alice called me,” Crane said.
“That would be Alice…?” Ms. Sgorous asked.
“Alice Kraft,” Crane said, wondering one last time, did they really know it was her.
“What specifically did she tell you?” Conroy asked. Suddenly Crane remembered, she did not tell him Rocket Solar when they met. It was his own work that figured it out.
“Wait, she never told me it was Rocket Solar, just that there was a solar company that had received large orders from Chinese solar companies and that would cause the stock to rise.”
“Mr. Crane, you said you would cooperate. If she didn’t tell you it was Rocket Solar, who did?” Conroy persisted.
“No one,” Crane said, pleased with his recollection, “I came back to the office and talked it over with Edward Wheelwright. He told me to do the research and see who it might be. I worked for an afternoon and figured out that it had to be Rocket Solar. Wheelwright…,” and here Crane paused—high and mighty Ed Wheelwright wouldn’t soil his clean hands, and Lenny the Liar crafted a piece of revenge for Mr. Wheelwright— “Wheelwright, I told him it was Rocket Solar, and he said he needed to think about it. He said if we were to do a large buy here, he should do it with me outside of Brunswick, sort of one off, one degree of separation. That was the way Eddie saw the mosaic of information; it had to be a one or two off. The further removed the better. He had me call Alice back and say we were not interested.”
“Good, that’s very helpful. Now, we need to know more about this Alice Kraft and the other people inside Blackthorn that she discussed,” Sgorous said, adding, “Then we want to come back and talk about Brunswick and what you can share about a Parker Barnes.”
“Fine,” Crane said, but saddened they had Parker’s name; he had to protect him. But he did see a real opportunity to settle more than one score in this discussion.
“Good, so let’s go to Blackthorn. How did Alice Kraft describe what she knew; where did she get the information.”
“We met and she described an opportunity to make a significant fortune, but we had to act quickly. She said her boss, Sid Rogers, was also trading on the information. Alice said the solar company had received three large orders from Chinese solar companies that would send the stock soaring, doubling,” Crane concluded.
“Thank you, Leonard,” Sgorous said, and continuing, “now we have information that I need to ask you about at Blackthorn. What did Alice Kraft tell you about the involvement of the two brothers who run the company and own much of it?”
“Nothing,” Crane said with a puzzled look.
“She did not tell you that they were selling in large quantities,” Detective Conroy asked.
“No,” Crane said, confused now, “Why would they sell? Everyone was buying. We made a bundle. That makes no sense,” then Crane paused, thought for a moment, adding, “If that’s the case, it would suggest that the brothers are cashing out while the stock is high or that the orders are no good?”
“So, you made buys for yourself. Do the figures we have sound right, about one 150 thousand in profit?”
“Roughly, but close enough,” Crane replied to Conroy.
“Who else did you share this inside information with?” Conroy asked.
“You are still referring to the fact that I figured out which company Alice was talking about as inside information. I told you that she did not tell me the name of the company,” Lenny the Liar rose up to protect his reputation.
“Mr. Crane, are you forgetting that we have phone recordings of your discussions?” Sgorous said.
“I met with Alice Kraft,” Crane said.
“We also have a phone conversation between you and a rather upset Ms. Kraft with her telling you the name of the company was Rocket Solar,” Sgorous said.
Crane’s face reddened, bright red. Anger. Had he forgot she told him the name of the company? Wait, that was after he figured it out. It was not insider information.
“That was not insider information. I figured out the company myself before she told me that,” the Liar persisted.
“Mr. Crane, are we back to that again?” Conroy said angrily, “The information you had is inside information; you traded on it and made illegal profits. We’ve told you those actions are punishable by up to twenty-five years in prison,” the detective concluded firmly, adding, “Are we clear.”
The “are we clear” was said forcefully enough that the Liar crawled back inside his shell, and Crane answered, “Yes, sir.”
At this point Conroy stood up and walked to a dry erase board on the wall at the front of the room. “So, Leonard buys three hundred thousand shares, correct?” he said as he wrote, “Leonard—300k shares.”
“Yes, that’s right,” Crane replied.
“Now, Alice Kraft, how many shares did she buy?” Crane said. Sgorous looked at Conroy; both hoping Crane could shed light on her inside buying since they had not been able nail down her trading accounts. They figured this may have been done through relatives or friends, which is often the case.
“Alice wanted me to buy the shares. I don’t know if she had access to enough money, quick enough to act,” Crane said, continuing, “She knew through my trading desk at Brunswick Fund I would be able to buy plenty.”
“And did you?” Sgorous asked.
“No, not there, not at that time. But once I saw the scale of buying that Brunswick was going to do on Rocket, I left,” Crane said.
“You mean in the predetermined way that you had agreed to with your boss, what was his name?” Conroy said.
“Wheelwright, Edward Wheelwright,” Crane said, adding, “Not quite. Once I saw the scale of buying they were going to do, I left. I wanted nothing more to do with it.”
Sgorous and Conroy exchanged knowing glances again, that Crane had changed his story. Conroy let it pass, for the time being.
“So, let me get this straight, after you left, you bought three hundred thousand shares.”
Crane, a little unsure of why Conroy repeated that said, “Nothing. Those buys are small change. Wheelwright heads up Brunswick fund. They bought millions of shares.”
“And how were these shares purchased,” Conroy asked, as they did not show a number anywhere that large flowing through Brunswick Fund.
“Through Brunswick Fund.”
“And you know this how? Who told you they bought millions of shares?” Conroy asked.
Why are they asking that question, surely they know of the trades. He paused, something was not right.
Conroy asked again, rephrasing the question. “You said you had left Brunswick Fund; you said you knew they bought millions of shares. But my question is, how do you know they bought those shares?”
Lenny the Liar was confounded. Was he trapping himself somehow in this? Would this affect Kish? Could he end up getting Parker in trouble? He had to protect Parker at all costs. Eddie told him. “Eddie Wheelwright told me,” Conroy blurted out.
“When did he tell you this,” Conroy asked, knowing they had no taped phone conversations between the two men discussing the purchase of Rocket Solar stock.
“Probably the day after I left. No, more like two days later, and that’s when I bought my shares.”
“And you’re sure it was Wheelwright you talked to?” Sgorous asked.
“Yes, it was Wheelwright,” Crane said, feeling comfortable at ensuring Mr. Highandmighty was duly implicated.
Sgorous looked at Conroy. These trades were not showing up. The SEC had nothing on trades by Brunswick Fund although they did have phone calls between a number of people at Brunswick Fund and Blackthorn Investments in the timeframe they were discussing. The only trade of any consequence out of Brunswick Fund in this time frame was an account of one Parker Barnes.