Indictment Expanded for Justice, SEC Lawyers

A federal prosecutor and a Securities and Exchange Commission attorney conspired to advance a far-reaching stock fraud in which a $350,000 bribe was paid to people thought to be Canadian officials, an expanded U.S. indictment alleges. The expanded indictment of former SEC enforcement attorney James Nearen, handed up late last week, links his case for the first time to that filed by regulators against Andrew S. Pitt, an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles. The new indictment by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn adds additional allegations to charges it filed in October. Nearen, an SEC enforcement attorney in Denver from 1988 to 1995, denied the allegations through his lawyer, Jason Solotaroff of New York. Pitt’s attorney, Hillel Chodos of Los Angeles, did not respond to requests for comment.