Mark Nordlicht

Mark (Meir) Nordlicht (born 1968) is the founder and former chief investment officer of (now defunct) Platinum Partners, a U.S. based hedge fund, which came to be known for its unusual investment strategies becoming the subject of a series of controversial criminal and legal actions.

According to an indictment, Nordlicht, in addition to the fund's co-CIO and CFO, were accused of running a "ponzi like scheme".

A jury acquitted all defendants on the core charges relating to the Ponzi scheme operation, but found two of the lead executives guilty on the lesser charges relating to a bond-rigging scheme.

In an unusual move, Judge Brian Cogan, presiding in the case of United States vs. Nordlicht, et al., reversed the jurors' guilty verdicts and acquitted the firm's co-CIO of the lesser charges in a full acquittal, but ordered a new trial to be set for Nordlicht.

An appellate court later upheld the convictions.

Nordlicht was born to a Jewish family and raised on Long Island.

He graduated from Yeshiva University in 1990 with a B.A. in philosophy.

With $11,000 saved from his bar mitzvah he started trading commodity options.

Platinum Partners was formed in 2003 in New York City with Nordlicht as chief investment officer.

It portrayed itself as having a knack for illiquid investments and had $1.7 billion in assets in its most recent filing.

The investor mix consisted of institutional investors, family offices and ultra-high-net individuals.

Nordlicht's Platinum Partners management companies "projected stability and confidence" to current and prospective investors, reporting positive average returns of 17% from 2003 to 2015, according to a parallel civil lawsuit filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Included among the charges was manipulation of Black Elk Energy bonds.

Others charged in the SEC's complaint in addition to Nordlicht, Platinum Management (NY) LLC, and Platinum Credit Management LP:

Nordlicht and other defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges.

On December 19, 2016, federal agents arrested Nordlicht and six others on charges related to a $1 billion fraud that alleged that Nordlicht's firm operated "like a Ponzi scheme," according to prosecutors.

The indictment charged Nordlicht and his co-defendants with eight counts of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, investment adviser fraud, securities fraud conspiracy, investment adviser fraud conspiracy, and wire fraud conspiracy for defrauding investors through overvaluation of assets, concealment of severe cash flow problems at Platinum, and the preferential payment of redemptions.

The letter cited news articles in Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post published in the summer of 2016 reporting that Platinum was under investigation.

Nordlicht's lawyers further argued that the leaks, and not the actions of Platinum's executives, may have been responsible for the damage to the value of Platinum's funds that caused harm to investors.

Reporter Ira Stoll of New Boston Post said of the case:

"The more one looks into this, the more it looks like the Platinum Partners prosecution is just the latest in a mounting and troubling pattern of examples in which New York-area federal prosecutors and FBI agents have jailed hedge fund managers or destroyed their businesses with publicized raids — only to have the charges eventually overturned by judges or never brought at all."It was later disclosed via a Freedom of Information Act request that Judge Cogan who heard the Platinum Partners case rejected the notion that a media leak actually occurred.

A subsequent court document revealed that Mark Nordlicht believed that Platinum Partners' liquidity crunch was caused by their mismanagement.

The document quotes Nordlicht as writing in an e-mail "This ‘liquidity’ crunch [at PPVA] was caused by our mismanagement – yours, David [Levy] and I – of the Black Elk position. "

Lawyers for Nordlicht argued in court and in a letter dated April 7, 2017 that an FBI agent may have leaked information about the investigation to the press before it became public.

After a hung jury in his first trial, Seabrook was found guilty of bribery and conspiracy at a second trial in August 2018, and as a result of the ongoing case that forced Platinum to close, the correction officers' union pension fund lost $19 million of its investment.

A trial date of April 15, 2019 has been set.

The investigation of Platinum and Nordlicht was an outgrowth of a criminal case against Norman Seabrook, the head of the New York City correctional officers' union, who was alleged to have invested $20 million of the union's pension money in Platinum as part of a scheme in which he got kickbacks.

Murray Huberfeld, an executive of Platinum, reportedly gave Seabrook bribes including a Ferragamo bag stuffed with $60,000 in cash to secure a $20 million pension investment.

Seabrook was also to be paid a portion of the profits from the union's investment, which Huberfeld estimated would be between $100,000 and $150,000 a year, according to the government.

Seabrook was sentenced to 58 months in prison on February 8, 2019.

Trial the case of United States v. Nordlicht, et al. began on April 23, 2019, before U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan.

The jury trial spanned nine weeks as defendants Mark Nordlicht and to other platinum executives invoked various defenses unveiling unruly subject matter purported by the prosecution.

The jury reached a mixed verdict on July 9, 2019.

The jury rejected the prosecution's keystone argument purporting the Platinum Partners fund operated "like a Ponzi scheme," finding all defendants not guilty on those five subject charges unanimously.

The jury did find two defendants guilty on three counts relating to conspiracy and securities fraud in transactions relating to bondholders of oil exploration company Black Elk.

Platinum's former CFO, Joseph SanFilippo, was exonerated and acquired of all charges in a unanimous not guilty verdict by the jury on every count.

Earlier in proceedings, the judge overseeing the case nixed the government's case as to the credibility of fraud claims, finding no clear anchor of fact or evidence limiting the government's scope in prosecution on the subject charges relating to fraudulent misrepresentation or falsely inflating asset values relating to the Platinum flagship fund.

After the announcement of the jury's findings in verdict, presiding Judge Brian Cogan granted the defense a request for a special motion to vacate the lesser guilty verdicts.

The defense was granted by order to file motions challenging all remaining charges pertaining to the charges coinciding with the jury's guilty verdicts.

In a final statement, Hon. Cogan affirmed "It's not over yet," insinuating a likely re-examination of subject matter related to the Black Elk guilty charges.