Arthur Nadel’s partners will have to do without a 2008 Maserati GranTurismo from now on. According to TheLedger.com, a judge has agreed that a lease for the vehicle should be terminated, and the sports car is to be returned to its owner.
The lease for the Maserati was held by Viking Management LLC, whose principals are Neil and Christopher Moody. The Moodys were partners in Scoop Capital Management with Nadel, a firm managed three Viking hedge funds.
The receiver overseeing the Securities and Exchange Commission’s case against Nadel asked that the lease be terminated because the Maserati could not be liquidated to satisfy investors claims, TheLedger.com said. What’s more, the existence of the lease could represent a claim against the estate. However, disposal of the lease does not release Chris Moody of his obligation as guarantor on the lease agreement.
Arthur Nadel was president of Sarasota-based Scoop Management. The hedge funds managed by Scoop included Viking IRA, Valhalla Investment Partners LP, Viking, Victory, Victory IRA and Scoop Real Estate. Viking IRA, Valhalla and Viking funds were managed by Nadel under contract with his partners, Neil and Chris Moody.
Nadel disappeared on January 14, a day before he was to deliver a $50 million payout to investors. He left his family a purported suicide note, but it was always suspected that Nadel was alive and on the run. Money belonging to about 600 investors disappeared along with Nadel. Investigators say that those investors may have lost as much as $350 million.
Nadel turned himself in to the FBI in Tampa in late January. He has been charged with one count each of securities fraud and wire fraud. If convicted, Nadel could face a maximum of 20 years in prison on each charge.
As we reported earlier this month, the Moodys were named in a lawsuit filed by Nadel investor Louis Paolino Jr. According to the lawsuit, Paolino’s main investment fund, the one he thought would carry his estate through the turbulent late 2000s, was Viking Fund LLC. Paolino has said he was frequently on the phone to either Neil or Chris Moody. He said Neil Moody told him the hedge fund, which traded stock market futures, was supposed to remain 90 percent liquid by the end of each day. Paolino alleges that he lost $5.8 million because of Nadel’s fraud.
Paolino once ran Mace Security, the publicly traded maker of chemical self-defense spray of the same name. He had placed $3.2 million of Mace money, as well as his own, with Scoop. In May, he was fired by the Board of Directors of Mace, and the board tried to get the company’s money out of Scoop. Scoop did issue Mace a check for $1 million in November, but nothing more was ever returned to the company, the Herald Tribune said.
Paolino’s lawsuit claims the Moody’s used fraudulently-obtained management fees to buy $675,000 worth of gems and jewelry from a Sarasota jewelry store. The Moody’s are also partners in the store.
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