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Saturday, April 25, 2009
Investment Boss Didn't Know About Insider Trading Case
By Thomas J. Cole
Journal Staff Writer
Because Anthony Correra is a close associate of Gov. Bill Richardson and a fundraiser for President Barack Obama, his name has surfaced occasionally over the past several years.
Most recently, Correra has been in the news because newly disclosed records show his son Marc has shared in more than $11.5 million in marketing fees paid by recipients of investments made by the State Investment Council.
Marc Correra is also a partner in a company that was recently awarded a license by the state Racing Commission for a planned horse-racing track and slot-machine casino in Raton.
State Investment Officer Gary Bland, a Richardson appointee who plays a pivotal role in deciding where the SIC invests your money, serves with Marc Correra on four nonprofit boards and has said he talks almost daily to the father about market conditions.
Anthony Correra, 73, of Albuquerque, is a retired investment adviser who worked in New York and possibly California and Florida before setting up a business here in 1989.
While in New York, he was accused in an illegal insider trading scheme.
Correra neither denied nor admitted wrongdoing but agreed to give up nearly $500,000 in profits from the alleged scheme and was barred from working as a broker for at least four years.
According to an article in The New York Times on Aug. 10, 1990, government lawyers accused a former associate at a prominent New York law firm, the associate's sister, Correra and three others of earning at least $3.75 million from illegal insider trading from 1984 to 1988.
The law firm associate later pleaded guilty, but Correra was apparently never charged with a crime.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission brought civil and administrative proceedings against Correra, and he later agreed to a settlement with the SEC that included giving up the $500,000 and the disbarment.
The settlement is detailed in records obtained from the National Association of Securities Dealers.
Through a spokesman, Bland said Friday that he was unaware that Correra had been involved in the insider trading case.
It wasn't Correra's first run-in with regulators.
In 1983, he was censured, fined $250 and directed to disgorge $1,750 for improperly selling shares in a public distribution to a son. Records don't identify the son by name.
Anthony Correra formed Sandia Asset Management, an investment-advisory business, in 1989, and Marc Correra worked there before establishing his own company, L2 Capital Management.
Sandia Asset and L2 have the same address and telephone number in Santa Fe, although Anthony Correra is listed as retired on records of federal campaign contributions in 2008.
The ties between Anthony Correra and Richardson run long and deep.
Correra and Sandia Asset contributed more than $28,000 to Richardson's first run for governor, in 2002, according to campaign-finance data compiled by the nonprofit National Institute on Money in State Politics.
Sandia Asset later gave $3,000 to Moving America Forward, a Richardson political committee, and Correra served as a director of the Moving America Forward Foundation, which was created to increase Hispanic and American Indian participation in elections.
Last year, Correra was a co-host for a Richardson fundraiser in Albuquerque for Obama. The goal of the event was to raise $1.5 million.
Neither Anthony nor Marc Correra was a financial supporter of Richardson's bid for the presidency last year; they were initially backers of then-Sen. Hillary Clinton.
Federal campaign-finance data complied by the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics show that, last year, Anthony Correra donated to Democratic organizations in several states. He gave $28,500 to the Democratic National Committee, and Marc Correra gave another $26,200 to the DNC.
Anthony Correra and Richardson were co-hosts of another fundraiser in Santa Fe in 2005, this one for Eliot Spitzer in his race for governor of New York.
Spitzer was nicknamed the Sheriff of Wall Street for his pursuit of corruption while state attorney general. He won the governorship but resigned in a prostitution scandal.
Richardson is chairman of the State Investment Council and appoints most of its members, although he rarely attends council meetings.
Bland has said that Marc Correra doesn't receive any favoritism in decisions by the State Investment Council.
The governor has said through a spokesman that he was unaware of any third-party marketers like Marc Correra being paid in connection with state investments.
Richardson also appoints the members of the Racing Commission, which granted the license to the Marc Correra partnership for the Raton racino.
A Richardson spokesman has said that relationships played no role in the licensing decision. Marc Correra's wife also once worked as the governor's international protocol officer.
Anthony Correra couldn't be reached for comment. Marc Correra, 45, a broker, has repeatedly declined to return telephone calls.
UpFront is a daily front-page opinion column. Thom Cole can be reached in Santa Fe at (505) 992-6280 or at tcole@abqjournal.com
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