Three former executives of New Stream Capital LLC, a Ridgefield-based hedge fund, were sentenced to prison this week for engaging in a scheme to deceive investors in order to obtain and maintain investments.
David Bryson, of Ridgefield, and Bart Gutekunst, of Weston, former co-managing partners and principals, and former Chief Financial Officer Richard Pereira, of Ridgefield, misrepresented the true risk of the fund to investors, deceptively raising millions of dollars in new investments in an effort to keep the fund viable, according to a press release the U.S. attorney’s office in Connecticut.
Through this scheme, New Stream investors were defrauded out of more than $46 million.
From April 2008 to December 2010, Bryson and Gutekunst each collected more than $5 million in management fees and profit sharing while participating in the fraud scheme, the U.S. attorney’s office said. In late 2008, Pereira received a $700,000 bonus from New Stream.
One of the investors deceived was an employer retirement trust covered by the Employee Retirement Security Act. Employees participating in the trust lost millions of dollars in retirement savings.
On May 21, 2014, Bryson, Gutekunst and Pereira each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Bryson was sentenced Tuesday in New Haven to 33 months in jail followed by three years of supervised release. Gutekunst was sentenced Wednesday to 30 months in jail and three years of supervised release. Pereira was sentenced Thursday to 12 months and one day of imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release.
