Bradbury Headed to Prison in Securities Fraud Case, Fined

Robert Bradbury, the former chairman and chief executive officer of the now-defunct underwriting firm Dolphin & Bradbury Inc., was sentenced by a federal judge in Philadelphia yesterday to a 366-day prison sentence and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine in connection with his pleading guilty to one criminal count of securities fraud.

The charges stem from Bradbury having sold unsuitably risky notes to four Philadelphia-area school districts between 1998 and 2004 to finance a failed golf course, causing the districts to lose more than $10 million.

Ahead of yesterday's sentencing, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it had settled separate civil litigation again Bradbury and his firm, barring him from the securities market.

The settlement with the SEC comes after the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on Nov. 30 issued a "final judgement" in the SEC's case against Bradbury and his firm that requires the former underwriter and his wife Margaret to disgorge $3.41 million of ill-gotten gains plus $1.73 million of prejudgement interest.

But those funds were determined to have been already paid in a settlement of charges that Bradbury and his wife reached earlier this year with the four school systems — North Penn School District, Boyertown Area School District, Perkiomen Valley School District and Red Lion Area School District — to end litigation in state court.

Bradbury is not expected to begin his prison sentence until Feb. 1. The delay is typical in white-collar crimes and allows the Bureau of Prisons to designate where Bradbury will serve his time, sources said.

Yesterday's sentencing came two years after the Justice Department filed a nine-count criminal indictment against Bradbury for defrauding the school districts, charging that he repeatedly sold them the unsuitable notes, concealing the risks associated with them, while serving as their financial adviser.

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