Martin R. "Marty" Frankel (born 1954)[2] is an American financial criminal who conducted a series of investment frauds in the late 20th century, causing hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.
In addition, he usually could not bring himself to actually make trades, causing trouble for him with the brokerage firms he worked for.
He also set up The Frankel Fund with Douglas Maxwell, but remained reluctant to buy or hold his chosen investments.
[2] After paying a fine and agreeing to be barred from trading by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1992, Frankel used several aliases, including David Rosse.
[5] In an attempt to use the Roman Catholic Church to discourage questions of legitimacy,[7] Frankel founded the St. Francis of Assisi Foundation in the British Virgin Islands, with a nominal mission of investing in insurance companies in order to fund hospitals.
[5] An official of the Roman Curia, Monsignor Emilio Colagiovanni, agreed to sign a letter falsely stating that the Foundation received funding from the Vatican.
"[9] Frankel was sentenced to 200 months (16 years 8 months) in federal prison; a state court in Tennessee also sentenced Frankel to 16 years, which was allowed to run concurrently on the condition that he assist officials in recovering lost assets looted from his Tennessee insurance companies.