{"id":333221,"date":"2010-02-17T22:58:15","date_gmt":"2010-02-18T03:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chicagopressrelease.com\/?p=19787"},"modified":"2010-02-17T22:58:15","modified_gmt":"2010-02-18T03:58:15","slug":"asset-manager-guilty-of-24-million-pension-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/333221","title":{"rendered":"Asset manager guilty of $24 million pension fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHICAGO — The former head of a Chicago asset management company pleaded guilty Wednesday to fleecing six union pension funds of $24 million and spending much of the money on jewelry, gambling and renovation of his strip club.<\/p>\n

John Orecchio, 44, said in a signed plea agreement he also used money that was supposed to be invested on behalf of union members to pay for a horse farm, luxury automobiles and chartered airplane travel.<\/p>\n

The jewelry alone was worth more than $1 million, he said. And more than $1.1 million went to what prosecutors called “purported political donations” that had nothing to do with Orecchio’s management of the six pension funds.<\/span><\/p>\n

Judge Harry Leinenweber set June 10 for sentencing. Orecchio could get 15 years in prison under federal guidelines but prosecutors promised to recommend a sizable break if he cooperates as they push ahead with further investigations.<\/p>\n

Orecchio was president of Chicago-based AA Capital, a firm that was placed in receivership by the Securities and Exchange Commission in September 2006.<\/p>\n

Before that, AA Capital firm invested assets on behalf of 60,000 members of the six locals, mostly based in the Detroit area.<\/p>\n

The locals are Carpenters Pension Trust Fund — Detroit & Vicinity; Operating Engineers Local 324 Pension Fund; Michigan Teamsters Joint Council 43 Pension Fund; Millwrights Local 1102 Supplemental Pension Fund, Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters Annuity Fund, and Arkansas\/Oklahoma Regional Council of Carpenters.<\/p>\n

Read the original article from FOX Chicago News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services<\/a><\/p>\n

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CHICAGO — The former head of a Chicago asset management company pleaded guilty Wednesday to fleecing six union pension funds of $24 million and spending much of the money on jewelry, gambling and renovation of his strip club. John Orecchio, 44, said in a signed plea agreement he also used money that was supposed to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-333221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333221\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}