If we’re to believe Russell Wasendorf Sr.’s suicide note, he didn’t have a whole lot of fun spending the $100 million or so that he admitted to stealing from the brokerage’s customers. But spend it he did. According to The Wall Street Journal, sections of Wasendorf’s suicide note that hadn’t yet been released cited the need to divert customer money to pay regulatory fines and “maintain the increasing levels of Regulatory Capital.” The company’s founder referred to “mean spirited” regulators that he claimed were more interested in putting firms out of business than protecting customers. It was the regulators, he’d have you believe, that forced him to fraud. And it was to the regulators that much of the money went. More on DailyFinance.com here.
