Douglas Alan Goldberg, Bid-Rigging and Fraud, California 2006

Former CDR Employee Pleads Guilty to Bid-Rigging and Fraud Conspiracies

A third former employee of Rubin/Chambers, Dunhill Insurance Services Inc., also known as CDR Financial Products (CDR), pleaded guilty today for his participation in bid-rigging and fraud conspiracies related to contracts for the investment of municipal bond proceeds and other related municipal finance contracts.

According to the charges filed today in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Douglas Alan Goldberg of Chatsworth, Calif., engaged in separate bid-rigging and fraud conspiracies with companies that provide a type of contract, known as an investment agreement, to state, county and local governments and agencies throughout the United States.

The public entities were seeking to invest money from a variety of sources, primarily the proceeds of municipal bonds that they had issued to raise money for, among other things, public projects. Goldberg also pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud.

CDR is a Beverly Hills, Calif.-based financial products and services firm. The department said in court documents that CDR was hired by public entities that issue municipal bonds to act as their broker and conduct what was supposed to be a competitive bidding process primarily for contracts for the investment of municipal bonds proceeds.

Competitive bidding for those contracts is the subject of regulations issued by the U.S. Department of the Treasury and is related to the tax-exempt status of the bonds. Goldberg admitted that, as a part of the bid-rigging conspiracy, from at least as early as 1998 until at least November 2006, he and other co-conspirators designated in advance which co-conspirator providers would be the winning bidder for certain investment agreements and submitted or caused to be submitted to CDR intentionally losing bids.

Goldberg has agreed to cooperate with the ongoing investigation. This is the third guilty plea to arise from an ongoing investigation into the municipal bonds industry, which is being conducted by the Antitrust Division’s New York Field Office, the FBI and Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation.

On Feb. 23, 2010, Daniel Moshe Naeh, also known as Dani Naeh, a former CDR employee, pleaded guilty to bid-rigging and fraud conspiracies and to one count of wire fraud. On March 11, 2010, Matthew Adam Rothman, also a former CDR employee, pleaded guilty to bid-rigging and fraud conspiracies and to one count of wire fraud.

The defendant, Douglas Alan Goldberg, pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan. His exact criminal charges are bid-rigging and fraud conspiracies and wire fraud. He is from Chatsworth, Calif. He pleaded guilty on November 2006. The outcome of his plea is currently cooperating with the ongoing investigation. No dollar amounts were mentioned in the source.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/third-former-employee-financial-products-and-services-firm-pleads-guilty-role-bid-rigging-and