SEC defendant Khan appeals VGTel conviction

by Mike Caswell

Abida Khan, a California investment adviser who recently received four years in jail for helping Vancouver-linked fraudster Ed Durante, has appealed her sentence and conviction. She has not yet stated her reasons for appealing, but she previously blamed her crimes on Mr. Durante. She said that he was a "world-class confidence man" who convinced her that he ran an advisory firm with $1-billion in assets under management. (All figures are in U.S. dollars.)

The appeal from Ms. Khan comes as part of a case in which New York prosecutors claimed that she moved clients of her advisory firm from safe investments into Mr. Durante's scheme. Her clients ended up buying over $5-million worth of ultimately worthless stock in a pink sheets listing called VGTel Inc. Meanwhile, she received $447,000 from Mr. Durante.

Ms. Khan, 54, pleaded not guilty and was convicted by a jury after a 14-day trial in March, 2017. On Jan. 18, 2018, she appeared before New York Judge Andrew Carter for sentencing, and received the four-year jail term. The judge also ordered her to serve three years of supervised release and left the matter of restitution open for a later date. She is now an inmate at MCC New York, a temporary holding prison in Manhattan. (The jail has held many notable inmates since its 1975 opening, with its more recent guests including drug lord Joaquin Guzman Loero, also known as El Chapo, and Ponzi scheme operator Bernie Madoff.)

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