Teicher Challenges New York Times Article

I linked to a story (below) from the New York Times. In response, I got an email from Victor Teicher's lawyers regarding his trading ban. The letter is below. I hereby express no opinion on the whole thing.

In light of your article, I believe that it is important for you to be made aware of the letter sent by Victor Teicher’s legal council to the New York Times:

"We are counsel to Victor Teicher, who is referenced in a misleading and false way in a February 14, 2009 article about Ezra Merkin's lawsuit with NYU. We write to demand an immediate retraction of statements in that article which suggest directly or indirectly that Mr. Teicher acted in violation of a bar by the Securities and Exchange Commission when he provided services to certain of Mr. Merkin's funds in certain periods in the 1990's into the beginning of 2000.

Those statements are false because Mr. Teicher was permitted, pursuant to an express agreement with the SEC, to be associated with unregistered investment advisors such as Mr. Merkin, until a final, unappealable order was issued by the Courts that the SEC had jurisdiction over unregistered investment advisors. After that final ruling was issued in the beginning of 2000, Mr. Teicher observed his agreement with the SEC to the letter and promptly stopped working for Mr. Merkin's funds. Your statement that he continued to be associated with those funds until 2001 is also false.

Having falsely suggested that Mr. Teicher's association with Mr. Merkin's funds was illegal, your article goes on to suggest that Mr. Teicher's 2007 and 2008 applications to modify his industry bar falsely claimed that he had complied with the securities laws and did not disclose his supposed illegal association with Mr. Merkin's funds. All of those false statements are libelous per se, and must be immediately and prominently retracted.

We note that had your reporters followed proper journalistic practices and attempted to contact Mr. Teicher or his representative prior to publication of this article, they would have learned the true facts. The failure to seek comment or clarification from Mr. Teicher is inexcusable and Mr. Teicher will pursue all available remedies.”

Stillman, Friedman & Shechtman, P.C.

Here's the originial post:

The New York Times reports that one of Madoff-feeder-boss J Ezra Merkin's chief investment advisers was actually in jail for securities fraud while he was working for Merkin.

“Victor Teicher, a convicted felon, and his staff were the persons actively managing the majority of the Ariel assets, and that hundreds of millions of dollars of Ariel’s funds had also been delivered for management to Madoff — even though Teicher had warned Merkin than Madoff’s returns were not possible.”

That quote is from a document filed by NYU in its suit against Merkin (NYU v. Gabriel Capital Corp., NY Sup. Ct., 603803/2008).

For more on Victor Teicher see: US v. Teicher, 987 f2d 112 (1992), SEC v. Teicher, 1995 WL 326050; SEC v. Teicher, 1995 WL 95076; SEC v. Teicher, 1998 WL 65657, see also: 2008 WL 4587535, 2007 WL 3254806.