Gregory Blotnick | |
---|---|
Born | Gregory Joshua Blotnick November 12, 1986 New York, New York, U.S. |
Education | Columbia Business School (MBA) Lehigh University (BS, Finance) |
Occupation | Hedge fund manager |
Parent | Srully Blotnick (father) |
Conviction(s) | Wire fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1343) (1 count) Money laundering (18 U.S.C. § 1957) (1 count) |
Criminal penalty | 51 months in prison |
Gregory Joshua Blotnick (born November 12, 1986) is an American hedge fund manager and author. He is the founder and portfolio manager of Brattle Street Capital, a long/short equity hedge fund based in New York. [1] [2] [3]
In June 2022, Blotnick pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering charges associated with claiming $6.8 million in fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans, and was sentenced to 51 months in prison. [1] [4] [5] [6]
Blotnick was born in 1986 in New York City, the son of Srully Blotnick, an author and PhD in cell biology from Harvard Medical School. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance from Lehigh University in 2009 and became a CFA Charterholder in 2012. He completed an MBA at Columbia Business School in 2014. [7]
In 2017, Blotnick was hired by Citadel LLC as an analyst. In 2019, he founded Brattle Street Capital, a hedge fund headquartered in New York. [8] [9]
Blotnick has written for Forbes, [10] Fortune, [11] CFA Institute, [12] [13] Kiplinger. [14] Newsmax, [7] [15] and MarketWatch. [16] [17]
In April 2021, Blotnick was arrested by the Manhattan District Attorney. He was accused of applying for five separate Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans between April 2020 and August 2020, and of falsifying information about the number of employees, federal tax returns, and payroll documentation. [18] [19] [20] "As alleged, Mr. Blotnick repeatedly took advantage of a system intended to provide lifelines to small businesses and their employees during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said in a statement. [21]
On May 6, 2021, Federal prosecutors filed a criminal complaint against Blotnick in the Federal District of New Jersey, [22] [23] which alleged that the funds were put into brokerage accounts with “nearly 45% of it going into losing stock trades,” stated U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Philip R. Sellinger. [18]
In July 2021, Blotnick was charged with 33 counts of grand larceny and fraud. He was indicted in Manhattan Criminal Court and ordered to be held on $500,000 cash bail at Rikers Island pending his next court appearance in October 2021. [20] [24] [25]
In October 2021, Blotnick pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering charges for submitting fraudulent loan applications as part of the March 2020 COVID-19 Economic stimulus bill. [26] [27]
In June 2022, a Federal court sentenced Blotnick to 51 months in prison for attempting to fraudulently obtain over $6.8 million in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans. [2] [4] [5] [27] [28] [29] [30] U.S. District Judge Brian R. Martinotti, presiding in Newark, also sentenced him to two years of supervised release and ordered restitution of $4.6 million. [18]
In August 2022, Blotnick settled with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) by consenting to a cease-and-desist order without admitting or denying the charges. [31]
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