Victor Posner

Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc., one of Wall Street's leading brokerage houses, and Michael Milken, head of its "junk bond" department, were accused of insider trading, stock market manipulation and defrauding the firm's clients in a massive lawsuit filed Wednesday by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The 184-page suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, caps the most far-reaching insider trading investigation ever undertaken by the SEC.

In late 1987, with speculation about federal investigations of Drexel Burnham Lambert on one of its periodic upswings, a prominent Drexel executive remarked on the ties binding the investment firm and Michael Milken, its famous "junk bond" impresario, both of whom were named Wednesday as defendants in a federal insider trading lawsuit. "If Michael were to walk out of this building and get run over by a truck, the firm could survive," the executive said.

Miami Beach financier Victor Posner was sentenced Friday to probation for tax evasion and was ordered to pay $4.3 million to the U.S. government and create a multimillion-dollar project to aid the homeless. The announcement by U.S. District Judge Eugene Spellman in Miami ended an eight-year legal battle for Posner, a pioneer corporate raider who is facing growing problems in his $4-billion corporate empire.

In a surprise move, industrialist Victor Posner pleaded no contest Tuesday to charges of evading more than $1.2 million in federal income taxes by inflating the value of land donated to a Miami Bible college. U.S. District Judge Eugene P. Spellman accepted the plea, ending a legal battle that started in March, 1979. A 1986 conviction in the case had been set aside because of jury irregularities, and a retrial had been set for Nov. 2.

Ivan F. Boesky pleaded guilty Thursday to a felony charge of conspiring to make false statements to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The plea satisfied one condition of his record insider trading settlement with federal authorities.

A jury of 11 women and one man was selected Monday to try industrialist Victor Posner on charges of evading $1.2 million in taxes and defrauding the U.S. government. Posner is accused of artificially inflating the value of a 22-acre tract of land that he donated to Miami Christian College in the mid-1970s. The government contends that he used the inflated figures in taking charitable deductions on his tax returns from 1975 to 1979 and that he owes $1.2 million in income taxes.

Business problems associated with Victor Posner's Evans Products Corp., which owes creditors $680 million, were not caused by the Miami Beach financier, a bankruptcy courtroom packed with attorneys and creditors was told Friday. "This is not a Victor Posner case," said Robert Mark, an attorney for Evans, adding that there had been a tendency to focus more on Posner than on the financial woes of the company itself.