The letter from a former Silicon Valley Bank vice president’s one-time fiancee to the judge who was set to sentence him for insider trading made him out to be a decent guy, deserving of leniency.
(Bloomberg) — The letter from a former Silicon Valley Bank vice president’s one-time fiancee to the judge who was set to sentence him for insider trading made him out to be a decent guy, deserving of leniency.
While Mounir Gad was spared from prison for securities fraud in 2021, it turned out that his ex didn’t actually write the letter. Gad did — without her permission, according to federal prosecutors.
Now Gad, 36, is headed to prison for 15 months after pleading guilty to document tampering, identity theft and criminal contempt of court.
Gad’s troubles started in the summer of 2021 when he was charged with insider trading in Oakland, California. The former bank executive pleaded guilty to two counts of securities fraud and asked the judge to grant him supervised release on probation, in part based on the contents of 12 letters from supporters and friends “who all roundly attest to Mr. Gad’s strength of character, loyalty, and dedication to his community,” according to a statement Monday by the office of San Francisco US Attorney Stephanie Hinds.
US District Judge Lucy H. Koh was apparently moved. She sentenced Gad to two years of probation and a $500 fine, according to court records.
But following the sentencing, one of his acquaintances who’d been at the hearing informed Gad’s lawyer that she hadn’t written the letter that the judge had cited during the hearing, according to the prosecutors’ statement.
When the judge found out, she summoned the former executive back to court to ask about “the lies that Mr. Gad put in the letter” that she had found “very compelling,” according to the statement.
At first Gad only admitted falsifying one letter but eventually confessed to altering — or authoring — six of them, prosecutors say.
At his sentencing Monday by a different judge, Edward Davila, Gad was ordered to pay a $10,000 fine and a $1,300 special assessment that goes to a crime victim’s fund, in addition to his prison term and three years of supervised release.
A lawyer for Gad didn’t immediately respond outside regular business hours to a request for comment.
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