Feb. 6–A federal jury on Thursday convicted former Chicago options trader Edward Thomas Jung on 10 counts of wire and securities fraud for bilking dozens of investors out of more than $21 million.<\/p>\n
Jung’s wife, Diane Juergens, fell to her knees and exclaimed, “Oh, my God!” when prosecutors sought to have her husband’s bond raised to $100,000 after the conviction.<\/p>\n
Jung, who had been free on his own recognizance since he was charged a year ago, “has every reason to flee,” Assistant U.S. Atty. Edward Kohler told the judge.<\/p>\n
Jung remained free, but U.S. District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow raised bond to $100,000, secured by Jung’s million-dollar home in Lincoln Park.<\/p>\n
After a three-week trial, the jury deliberated little more than three hours before convicting Jung on all counts.<\/p>\n
According to Kohler and co-prosecutor M. David Weisman, Jung, 58, a former model, faces up to eight years in prison. The judge set sentencing for June 4 in U.S. District Court.<\/p>\n
With a seat on the Chicago Board Options Exchange, Jung enticed about 60 people from around the country to invest millions of dollars in a hedge fund called Strategic Income Fund while promising to follow a conservative options trading strategy, the prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
Jung falsely told investors that their pledged stocks and bonds would be used solely to conduct stock options trading on their behalf, they said.<\/p>\n
Instead, Jung used the money to fund his own options trading and to pay his business expenses, including lease fees for his CBOE seat, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
He piled up huge trading losses between 1994 and 1998.<\/p>\n
The government also alleged that Jung misrepresented his trading performance to prospective investors by inflating the success of his trading for the fund and failing to disclose his misappropriations.<\/p>\n
According to court records, Jung told one investor who gave him $300,000 that no more than 5 percent of the money would be at risk. The investor lost the entire amount.<\/p>\n
In seeking the higher bond, Kohler said Jung had filed for bankruptcy yet was still able to afford private attorneys to represent him at trial.<\/p>\n
Investors, though, “haven’t gotten dime one,” Kohler told the judge.<\/p>\n
—–<\/p>\n
To see more of the Chicago Tribune, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http:\/\/www.chicago.tribune.com\/<\/p>\n
(c) 2004, Chicago Tribune. Distributed by Knight Ridder\/Tribune Business News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Feb. 6–A federal jury on Thursday convicted former Chicago options trader Edward Thomas Jung on 10 counts of wire and securities fraud for bilking dozens of investors out of more than $21 million. Jung’s wife, Diane Juergens, fell to her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hedgeco-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2316\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}