Guy Who Ripped Off, Lied To Kim Kardashian's 72 Day Husband Pleads Guilty
Remember Andrey Hicks? To recap, he's the guy who was arrested last year (trying to make a run for Switzerland) and had his assets frozen by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which took issue with the fact that, in addition to stealing a couple million from investors in his Locust Offshore Management fund, he'd fed them a "brazen web of lies" that included: the claim he received a Ph.D in Applied Mathematics from Harvard in two years (he neither earned his doctorate from Harvard nor his undergraduate degree and in fact only lasted three semesters in Cambridge, taking a single math course, in which he got a D-); the claim that while working at Barclays Capital, he increased his group's assets under management to $16 billion, despite BarCap having no record of his employment; the claim that at Locust, he applied "quantitative strategies based on mathematical models he developed at Harvard"; the claim that Ernst & Young was the fund's auditor, Credit Suisse its prime broker and custodian, even though the SEC report was the first either had heard of the guy. Anyway, he's probably going to spend some time in jail.
Andrey Hicks pleaded guilty to five counts of wire fraud before U.S. Federal Judge Patti Saris in Boston, admitting that he had stolen $2.3 million from 10 people who believed he was investing the money into his firm, Locust Offshore Management. He was arrested last year while trying to flee to Switzerland. An attorney for Hicks could not immediately be reached for comment. Hicks is scheduled to be sentenced on March 6, 2013 and faces up to 20 years in prison. In March, a federal judge ordered him and Locust Offshore to pay back $2.5 million with interest plus pay more than $5 million in penalties. Hicks' story garnered media attention partly because National Basketball Association player Kris Humphries, the former husband of reality TV star Kim Kardashian, had invested money with Hicks, a government source familiar with the matter said at the time.
U.S. man pleads guilty to wire fraud in hedge fund scheme [Reuters]
Earlier: Securities And Exchange Commission Not Amused By Hedge Fund Manager’s “Web Of Lies”
