Quattrone Appeals His Conviction

On January 27, Frank Quattrone told an appeals court that his case "illustrates what can happen when a routine e-mail is dissected out of context in the harsh glare of a courtroom." The statement was made in an appeal filed with the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Quattrone was convicted in May 2004 for obstructing a federal investigation into the distribution of initial public offerings (IPOs) by his employer, Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB). Allegedly, his obstruction took the form of sending an e-mail that seconded a colleague's suggestion that the CSFB staff clean up their files in accordance with standing company policy, even though he knew or should have known that documents in the files had been subpoenaed. (See my article "The Case for Frank Quattrone," in the July-August 2004 Navigator.) In September, Quattrone was sentenced to eighteen months in prison, although the federal probation department had recommended a sentence of only five months. The judge in the case, Richard Owen, also refused Quattrone's motion to remain free on bail while his appeal was pending, but the appeals court ruled that he could remain free while pursuing his challenge to the conviction.

Quattrone's brief offers several lines of argument. In the first place, it says, the government failed to show that Quattrone knew the documents had been subpoenaed or that he had any reason to fear the investigation. And as events proved, he had no reason to fear the investigation: "Ultimately and predictably, the investigations never implicated Quattrone or any [person in his group]. And the files of those bankers—the very documents that Quattrone supposedly wanted to destroy—contained nothing incriminating or embarrassing. . . . There was no 'smoking gun'; there was not even a toy popgun." Secondly, the brief says, the court judge repeatedly interfered with Quattrone's testimony in a manner that created prejudice in the minds of the jurors. Thirdly, it says that the judge allowed the jury to hear irrelevant testimony about the scale of Quattrone's compensation.

In February, several associations of lawyers filed a brief in support of Quattrone's appeal, focusing on the actions of the district court judge. This, according to a report in the New York Times, is "a rare instance of these organizations taking such a strong stand against a sitting judge" (February 10, 2005). According to Barry Scheck, president of one of the organizations, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers: "This is unusual for us, but this situation was unusually egregious. This was the equivalent of a judicial mugging. And if this can be done to Frank Quattrone—a person with means—it can be done to anybody."