Stock trader targeted in Sept. 11 probe agrees to return to New York

Stock trader targeted in Sept. 11 probe agrees to return to New York

Associated Press
Wednesday, June 5, 2002

SAN DIEGO - An Egyptian-born financial analyst who prosecutors said may have had prior knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks agreed Tuesday to be returned to New York to face charges of using confidential FBI information to manipulate stock prices.


Amr I. ``Tony'' Elgindy will remain held without bond in San Diego until he is moved. A spokesman for the U.S. marshal's office would not say exactly when he would be moved.
Elgindy, 34, of Encinitas, waived his right to fight extradition at a brief hearing Tuesday. His attorney, Jeanne Knight, did not return a message seeking comment.
In a telephone interview from jail, Elgindy told the Los Angeles Times that the terrorist allegations were raised because ``of my birthplace, my name, the color of my skin.'' He also said that all the material he used to focus on stocks was gathered through public sources.
Federal authorities arrested Elgindy last month on an indictment issued by a New York grand jury, charging him with insider trading, securities fraud, extortion and obstruction of justice.
He is accused of bribing an FBI agent to give him secrets from federal criminal databases and then using the information to make money in the stock market. A current and a former FBI agent were among four others charged in the conspiracy.
At a May 24 detention hearing in San Diego, a federal prosecutor said Elgindy may have known about the Sept. 11 attacks and tried to profit from them.
Elgindy telephoned his broker on Sept. 10, asked him to liquidate his children's $300,000 trust account, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ken Breen said. The defendant also made a comment that the Dow Jones industrial average, then trading at about 9,600, would drop to 3,000, Breen said.
``Perhaps Mr. Elgindy had pre-knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks,'' he said. ``Instead of trying to report it, he tried to profit from it.''
Breen said that Elgindy had $2 million invested in positions that would have benefited from a market collapse.
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