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Broker turns self in to FBI

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Posted 9:17AM on Sunday 10th February 2002 ( 22 years ago )
CLEVELAND - An investment broker who disappeared after he prompted the FBI to investigate $300 million missing from his clients&#39; accounts turned himself in Saturday. <br> <br> Frank Gruttadauria, manager of a Cleveland office of Lehman Brothers, surrendered at the FBI&#39;s downtown office. A federal warrant issued Jan. 25 charges him with making false statements to a financial institution. <br> <br> Gruttadauria, 44, disappeared with his passport Jan. 11. <br> <br> He left a letter for the FBI saying he acted alone and didn&#39;t take money for personal use, investigators said. He wrote that lax supervision enabled him to misappropriate money over 15 years. <br> <br> He also wrote his family after he disappeared, apologizing to his mother for putting her through an ordeal. ``I don&#39;t know how to live as a fugitive,&#39;&#39; the letter concluded. <br> <br> His mother and a lawyer for the family did not immediately return calls seeking comment Saturday. <br> <br> Gruttadauria is scheduled to appear before a U.S. magistrate Monday, the FBI said. <br> <br> The FBI, Securities and Exchange Commission, National Association of Securities Dealers and Gruttadauria&#39;s former employers have been investigating since he disappeared. <br> <br> Investigators have said they suspect Gruttadauria ran a giant shell game in which his clients&#39; money was transferred into accounts he controlled under fictitious names. Whenever a client needed a withdrawal from an account that was empty, money would be transferred from another client. <br> <br> Among clients who lost money are businessman Samuel Glazer, a Mr. Coffee co-founder who lost about $30 million and George Forbes, head of the local NAACP and a former president of Cleveland City Council, who lost more than $1 million. <br> <br> Gruttadauria had worked at Lehman Brothers since October 2000, when the company bought his then-employer, SG Cowen Securities Corp. He worked for Hambrecht & Quist in Chicago from 1987-89. <br> <br> Gruttadauria is no longer an employee of Lehman, company spokesman William Ahearn said Wednesday.

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