A member of a family with past ties to Delaware is facing a host of federal charges.
Andrew Caspersen, 39 was charged in U.S. District Court in New York in connection with a scheme that allegedly defrauded investors of $95 million.
He also faces civil charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission.
According to a release, from July 2015 through March 2016, Caspersen, served as a partner in the New York office of a multinational financial services firm involved in private equity and alternative asset advisory work
Prosecutors alleged that the Caspersen converted to his own use approximately $24.6 million from a charitable foundation affiliated with a multinational hedge fund based in New York, and $400,000 from an employee of the hedge fund.
Rather than invest his victims’ funds, Caspersen used a portion of the $25 million to trade securities in his personal brokerage account, which had been virtually wiped out by aggressive options trading.
Shortly before his arrest at La Guardia Airport, Caspersen attempted to solicit an additional $20 million investment from the same charitable foundation and a $50 million investment from another multinational private equity firm headquartered in New York, the release stated.
Caspersen is the son of Finn Caspersen, who served as CEO of Wilmington-based Beneficial Corp. until it was sold to Household Finance. Beneficial also owned Wilmington-based Beneficial National Bank, which was later sold to Sun National Bank of New Jersey. Sun later sold the former Beneficial branches to WSFS.
Beneficial specialized in high interest-rate loans to lower income individuals.
While the company maintained its headquarters in Wilmington, much of its operations were in New Jersey, the home of Finn Caspersen, the son of the founder of Beneficial. Caspersen was also active in real estate development in the Tampa, FL area.
Finn, an accomplished equestrian, was known for a high society lifestyle and connections with the elite in New Jersey and by some accounts Queen Elizabeth II. His sons, including Andrew followed in his footsteps and earned Harvard Law degrees.
In 2009, the elder Caspersen was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound near his property in Rhode Island. He had been suffering from cancer and was the target of an investigation by the IRS over the use of offshore bank accounts.
Vanity Fair magazine wrote an extensive article on Finn Caspersen’s Gatsby-like life and also took note of his son’s charges in a recent article.
