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My Old Boss Makes the News
As a stock cheat!
Imagine my surprise this morning when I read the news on my Android Google feed. My old employer, Andy Murstein, just settled a lawsuit with the SEC. He paid the agency $4 million to get out from under legally and make the headache go away.
As with Donald Trump and his settlement regarding the prevention of Black tenants leasing apartments in one of his buildings, Murstein made no admission of guilt.
What got Murstein in hot water was Andy’s alleged willful creation of fake news regarding the value of his company, whose main thrust was lending money to immigrants to buy taxi medallions.
When Uber and Lyft hijacked most of the ride share business, Murstein’s company stock plummeted from $17 per share down to $3. In response, Andy took the bull(shit) by the horns and hired a public relations guy to plant stories in 50 different publications about how wonderful his company was doing when it wasn’t. Apparently, the SEC felt he’d crossed the fraud line and was on the case big time.
I first met Andy in 1995 while working at a taxi industry publication. He called into the office to buy an ad in the paper. But Murstein wasn’t like other advertisers. Rather than a simple ad designed to bring customers, Andy wanted an advertorial written about his company branching out into…
