- 117 -
their payroll for 11 years under this arrangement." We believe
that Fred told Bucci much the same sort of thing. The most
plausible explanation for Bucci's cooperation is that Fred
presented him with a program whereby Machise would ostensibly
both lend and borrow the cash to meet its weekly payroll. As a
result, Machise would then be able to deduct 115 or 120 percent
of those payments, as "rents" including the "override". Machise
would also be able to deduct the various management fees. In
addition, Machise and BBPA would split investor cash between
them, based upon the "line-of-credit" notes, or, later, upon
BBPA's sharing the cash after taking out its "promoters' fee".
Presented with these lucrative possibilities, Bucci let Fred
handle the details. Bucci had only to sign the documents put
before him and otherwise do what Fred told him to do, while
otherwise continuing to run the Machise business as before.
Nor was there any hard bargaining by the other participants,
the investor partners. The testimony of these investors provides
direct evidence of the same type of reliance on BBPA that Bucci
had in Fred. Dr. Crescenzo professed to having "a lot of faith"
in the Bryens, and left the matter of his investment entirely up
to Bruce. Schweiger, an investment banker, conceded that he had
a great deal of faith in Fred, and therefore he did not "dot the
I's and cross the T's in a very sophisticated manner about asking
for financial statements * * * and things like that." Churchill
testified that he did not understand how the partnerships worked
Page: Previous 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 NextLast modified: May 25, 2011