SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C.

Litigation Release No. 16544 / May 9, 2000

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION v. SAM M. ANTAR, ET AL., Civil Action No. 93-3988 (HAA) (D.N.J. April 27, 2000)

The Honorable Harold A. Ackerman of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey issued an order and opinion on April 27, 2000, setting the amounts of disgorgement and prejudgment interest that defendants Sam M. Antar, Allen Antar and Benjamin Kuszer would be ordered to pay for their insider trading in connection with their sales of common stock in Crazy Eddie, Inc. The Court held that Sam M. Antar was liable for $15,087,000 in disgorgement plus $42,423,642 in prejudgment interest, for a total of $57,510,642; that Allen Antar was liable for $3,438,000 in disgorgement plus $8,473,045 in prejudgment interest, for a total of $11,911,045; and that Benjamin Kuszer was liable for $850,000 in disgorgement plus $2,456,240 in prejudgment interest, for a total of $3,306,240. The Court's disgorgement findings were based on an evidentiary hearing lasting two days in which the Commission presented the expert testimony of Candace L. Preston, a Certified Financial Analyst, on the issue of what the value of Crazy Eddie stock would have been if the public had known of the defendants' frauds. Rejecting the defendants' contention that the amount of their disgorgement should be $0, Judge Ackerman stated that

as innovative as it was, the core of Crazy Eddie was rotten, and the investing public, once it became aware of that fact, would not have dawdled in ridding itself of the stock. The extensive fraud would certainly have driven off the investors, and the defendants' contention that the stock retained some value despite the frauds at the company simply lacks persuasiveness.

In a prior opinion, issued on July 15, 1998, the Court found that the defendants artificially inflated the prices of their Crazy Eddie stock holdings by engaging in an extensive, multifaceted fraud beginning in the 1970s and continuing through 1987 at Crazy Eddie, an electronics retailing chain that at its peak operated forty stores in the greater New York metropolitan area. Crazy Eddie commenced operations in 1969 under the aegis of Sam M. Antar, 78, of West End, New Jersey, and his son, Eddie Antar. Allen Antar, 50, of Oakhurst, New Jersey, is one of Eddie's brothers. Benjamin Kuszer, 50, of Brooklyn, New York, is Sam M.'s son-in-law and Eddie's brother-in-law.

Judge Ackerman also determined that the three relief defendants remaining in the case, Rori Antar, Sam A. Antar and Michelle Antar, would be ordered to pay $425,000 each in disgorgement in connection with Crazy Eddie stock that Eddie Antar sold on their behalf in March 1985 while he was in possession of material, nonpublic information.

Prior Litigation Releases dealing with this and related cases: 15814, 15251, 15008, 14431, 14053, 14028, 13958, 13776, 13764, 13723, 13649, 13509, 13281, 12995, 12723, 12548, 12356, and 12239.

http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/lr16544.htm