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Wasendorf's son won't be charged in Iowa brokerage fraud, lawyer says
A lawyer for Peregrine Financial Group President Russ Wasendorf Jr. says his client does not expect to be charged in connection with the alleged fraud scheme that his father carried out at the Iowa-based brokerage.
Attorney Nicholas Iavarone said Tuesday that Wasendorf Jr. was told by investigators that he was not a target before he testified last week in front of a federal grand jury in Cedar Rapids.
The panel later returned an indictment charging Peregrine founder and CEO Russ Wasendorf Sr. with 31 counts of lying to regulators. Wasendorf Sr. pleaded not guilty last week.
Iavarone says "Russ Jr." ran the company's profit centers, but was not involved with the finances of the company. He says he feels betrayed by his father, and stunned that regulators missed the fraud.
Peregrine Financial Group President and Chief Operating Officer Russ Wasendorf, Jr., (right) and Senior Vice President Jim Kelly help release a pair of trumpeter swans during an Iowa Department of Natural Resources presentation before a quartet of the birds were released at the Beaver Valley Wetlands in rural Cedar Falls in June 2010. (RICK CHASE / Courier Staff Photographer)
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