Another yuppie crook

Press, 26 January 1988, Page 12

Another yuppie crook

Mr David Bloom, a 23-year-old New Yorker masquerading as an investment adviser, collected SUSIO million over the past two years from 100 friends and associates.

change Commission, America’s financial watchdog, has filed a civil law suit against Mr Bloom, claiming he spent SUSB million of the money on himself. Among the toys he acquired were a SUS 4.7 million art collection and a SUSI. 9 million house in East Hampton Long Island. He even pledged SUSI million to the art museum of his alma mater, Duke University. He paid cash for his house, his 1987 Mercedes and his 1988 Aston Martin. The S.E.C. has yet to account for the other SUS2

Like many a con man before him, Mr Bloom was undone by the temptation to brag. The S.E.C. says it was alerted by articles in the press hailing his art collecting. The “New York Times Magazine” featured Mr Bloom as one of Wall Street’s “new breed” of art investors. He was quoted as saying “First I decide what I want to buy, then I worry about how I’m going to pay for it.”

But he never invested a cent of it in the stockmarket — despite hiring two employees and sending regular portfolio statements to his clients. Nor was Mr Bloom’s "Great Sutton Investors Group Inc.” ever registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Now the Securities and Ex-

Copyright — The Economist