Indicted dot-com financier Frank Quattrone and his tech mogul pals are raising millions for a tiny charity that helps free the wrongfully imprisoned – just in case he lands behind bars in his third trial.
Quattrone, who earned $1 billion launching numerous – and often ill-fated – technology stock deals, was tried twice for obstructing a federal probe into the 2001 Internet stock crash.
His first trial ended with a hung jury and his second in an 18-month prison conviction – later overturned, but the feds may take a third swing at him.
If they do, Quattrone’s making sure he’s got a squeaky clean ally at his side, according to an article in San Francisco magazine on newsstands today.
Quattrone has recruited a who’s who of Silicon Valley’s ruling class – many of whom he personally made overnight multimillionaires – to raise funds for the Northern California Innocence Project.
The struggling not-for-profit investigates and battles the courts on behalf of some 1,600 poor and oppressed inmates in state prisons who appear to be wrongly convicted.
Quattrone personally wrote checks for as much as $500,000 and wrangled even bigger gifts from Valley pals including Google CEO Eric Schmidt to the tech world’s top money man, venture capital giant John Doerr.
The article said the charity has never defended a rich mogul before, but Quattrone believes he is probably a government scapegoat for the bust of the tech bubble.
Quoting Silicon Valley sources, the article said moguls were afraid to show support for Quattrone earlier because the “trial was such a witch hunt, it was hard to figure out the right way to support him.”
But now it’s an open campaign to raise funds. Quattrone, a director of the charity, is handing out titles of “Justice Fighter” for donors of $50,000 and “Justice Seeker” for $25,000. Valley observers were amused by Quattrone’s hedging.
“His rich friends didn’t come out with moral support before, but now they get to help him with his legal expenses and write it off their taxes,” said Peter Schiff, portfolio chief of Euro Pacific Capital.
One investment banker quoted in the article said the Valley is like the Mafia, “There are ‘made guys’ – people who have been successful enough and made enough money so that they can say whatever they want and it won’t hurt them.”