Curtain Closed on Two Broadway Producers Guilty of $407M Fraud
A Canadian judge has found two producers, whose company brought to stage “Ragtime” and “Phantom of the Opera” guilty of participating in widespread accounting fraud.
Bloomberg reports that Garth Drabinsky and Myron Gottlieb, who co-founded Toronto-based Livent in the 1990s, allegedly raised hundreds of millions in financing, then misstated the company’s financial position when it went public.
The $407 million fraud trial caps a decade-long probe by Canadian police who characterized the matter as one of the biggest fraud cases in Canadian history.
Ontario Superior Court Judge Mary Lou Benotto found both men guilty of two counts of fraud and one count of forging a document. Bloomberg reports that each fraud count carries a maximum 14-year sentence and 10 years for forgery.
