U.S. District Court Judge Gerard E. Lynch of the Southern District of New York recently made a decision on motions to dismiss various charges against several key people at the former Refco.Some of the denied motions were brought by Phillip Bennett and Tone Grant; nothing surprising there. But some names are closer to the futures side of the business: Joe Murphy, former EVP of global marketing, former CFTC general counsel, Dennis Klejna who came on board as Refco general counsel in 1999 and EVP and COO William Sexton. In the decision Judge Lynch denied motions to dismiss several counts against Klejna, Murphy and Sexton. One note the judge made in his lively 87-page opinion was despite the access by the three to specific documents that may have raised red flags to the problems at Refco, they may not have been suspicious enough to investigate: "In this case, there certainly was a monster under the bed; the question was whether anyone had a reason to look there." Yet in the end, the judge still had reason to believe they were involved enough in the Refco day-to-day activities to deny their motions to dismiss certain charges.
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