RI Pension Investigator Siedle in NYT for $1M Indiana Settlement, Coming to RI in October

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

GoLocalProv News Team and Kate Nagle

 

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Edward Siedle

Former SEC lawyer and Forbes columnist Edward Siedle, who has conducted multiple investigations in the Rhode Island pension fund, was featured this week in the New York Times for his recent role in a whisteblowing case involving JPMorgan in Indiana.

"I've been asked if regulators ever take my investigations seriously?  Well, this is just the beginning," Siedle told GoLocalProv.com. "I told regulators they should pay attention to what's going on in Rhode Island."

NYT's Gretchen Morgenson wrote on August 21:

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In a July settlement, the bank paid $950,000 to Indiana, whose officials characterized JPMorgan’s practices as “outside the standards of honesty and ethics generally accepted in the securities trade and industry.”

“There’s no way these state regulators can ferret out Wall Street’s latest crime,” said Edward Siedle, a forensic fraud investigator at Benchmark Financial Services who represented the Indiana informant. “Leveraging the power of the whistle-blower is tremendously helpful, and it’s not costing the state anything.”

Coming to Rhode Island in October 

Siedle will speak at the Crowne Plaza in Warwick on October 12,  where he will review the findings of his completed crowdfunded forensic investigation of state pension fund's real estate investments. 

"Before October, you can expect to see another settlement," said Siedle, following the development inIndiana. "We're now firmly in the era of where regulators are receptive to industry insiders who can utilize and share their knowledge." 

Siedle noted that he will be coming out with a book shortly, as well. 

"The book I'm working on his "How to Steal a Lot of Money," said Siedle. "I wrote articles with that headline, and someone seriously got in touch with me and said they wanted more info, and I thought it was funny. I've actually got a series of emails with this person. So I said -- that's the fiction that lead to truth."

"[Rhode Island Governor] Gina Raimondo will be in the book," said Siedle. "It's the section about how you don't have to make money for a client to be a successful money manager." 

 

Related Slideshow: RI Public Pension Reform: Wall Street’s License To Steal

See the key findings from Forbes' columnist Edward Siedle, who unveiled his investigative report into the RI pension system, "License to Steal," in October 2013.  

"The Employee Retirement System of Rhode Island has secretly agreed to permit hedge fund managers to keep the state pension in the dark regarding how its assets are being invested; to grant mystery hedge fund investors a license to steal, or profit at its expense using inside information; and to engage in potentially illegal nondisclosure practices," said Siedle.  

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