Surplus Amerindo Fraud Funds Go to SEC, Not to Repaid Investors

About $8.7 million in assets, frozen after the fraud conviction of Amerindo Investment Advisors Inc.'s co-founders, will go toward satisfaction of an SEC civil penalty, a federal court ruled.

The defrauded investors—who already received their principal amounts and a “generous inflation adjustment"—aren’t entitled to a portion of the funds, the US District Court for the Southern District of New York said Tuesday.

Two remedies, the return of the investors’ principal and disgorgement, have been carried out, leaving only the civil penalty, the court said. The opinion is by Judge Richard J. Sullivan, an appeals court judge sitting by designation ...