Refco Directors Cough Up $39 Million

MANHATTAN (CN) - Two former Refco board members settle a civil forfeiture complaint by turning over $39 million in assets. Edwin Cox and William Graham, both of Texas, spent 9 and 4 months, respectively, as Refco directors in 1998 and 1999.

Prosecutors traced their assets and trusts to fraud that Refco executives committed as the company prepared for a leveraged buyout.

Prosecutors say Refco co-founder Thomas Dittmer paid Cox, 63, $39 million in August 2004 to resolve Cox's claim to proceeds of the 2004 buyout in which Thomas H. Lee Partners paid $1.9 billion for a majority stake in Refco.

Refco went bankrupt a year after the buyout, and announced that CEO Phillip Bennett had covered up $430 million in debts from shareholders.

Bennett is serving a 16-year prison sentence for securities fraud.

Cox is the beneficiary of the EKC Grantor Trusts 2000, of which Graham, 61, is the grantor, along with the WUG Grantor Trusts 2000.

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