Embattled money manager Alan Bond took the witness stand yesterday to deny criminal charges he cheated clients out of millions of dollars.
Bond, a once-frequent prognosticator on TV stock shows, is on trial in Manhattan federal court for allegedly cherry-picking successful trades for himself and dumping the losers onto his clients.
“Were you improperly allocating trades, Mr. Bond?” his lawyer Steve Statsinger asked.
“No, I did not,” Bond said.
Prosecutors charge Bond’s duplicity earned him nearly $7 million on an initial $200,000 investment, while his clients lost tens of millions of dollars with duds.
But the soft-spoken financial advisor claimed he had already decided which trades were for which accounts well before he actually ordered the trade.
“The allocation was made before the order was placed with the broker,” Bond said.
Bond also billed his investment style as “Jack-be-nimble, Jack-be-quick,” designed to profit from short-term buys.
But prosecutors say Bond used a “Jack-be-broke” strategy to short-change the pension funds of working class people who’d trusted him with their money.
Bond admitted that his funds performed poorly in 2000 and 2001, but blamed it on the plunging market.