A lawyer for investment fund pioneer Bruce Bent asked jurors on Wednesday to acquit his client of civil fraud charges, saying that the 2008 financial crisis was hard to predict, Reuters reported yesterday. Bent and his son were acting in good faith when their funds fell victim to an economic maelstrom in September 2008, attorney John Dellaportas told the jury in closing arguments in federal court in Manhattan. Closing arguments in their month-long trial had been scheduled for Oct. 29, but were delayed by Hurricane Sandy when the storm knocked out power to the federal courthouse in lower Manhattan last week. SEC attorney Alexander Janghorbani told the jury the Bents "knew they didn't have the money" to repay their investors. They "told their trustees, they told their investors, what they wanted to hear ... when they knew they couldn't deliver their promise," he said. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Bent, his son Bruce Bent II and their family-run Reserve Management firm in 2009, saying that they lied to investors about the safety of their money after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy on Sept. 15, 2008.
