12/06/12
On Wednesday, a New York state judge ruled that Saul Meyer, 42, the founder of a Texas pension consulting firm, who had earlier pleaded guilty to charges arising from a “pay to play” scheme at the New York state pension fund will not be required to serve jail time. Meyer had pleaded guilty in 2009 and his cooperation with the New York investigation ultimately sent former state comptroller Alan Hevesi to prison in 2011.
Meyer, an ex-partner of the Dallas-based Aldus Equity, was the last defendant to be sentence in the “pay to play” scheme at the New York pension fund. Meyer had admitted that he had paid $300,000 to the chief political consultant of Hevesi in exchange of getting the pension fund to invest.
While sentencing Meyer to a conditional discharge, New York state Supreme Court Justice Lewis Bart Stone told him “What you did was obviously unacceptable,” but confirmed that Meyer would be able to avoid prison.
Besides getting a felony conviction for securities fraud, Meyer has also paid $1 million in restitution, and had cooperated with the probes in New York and New Mexico. He was with them, but his change of heart proved convenient.
The case is People of New York v. Saul Meyer, Superior Court Information 4755/2009, New York state Supreme Court, New York County.
