SEC alleges fraud by former CalPERS chief

California's CalPERS--sounds like the GSA--only worse!--

SEC alleges fraud by former CalPERS chief, friend - OC Watchdog : The Orange County Register: " . . . What happened, the SEC alleged, was forgery: Villalobos, with Buenrostro’s cooperation, had scanned the CalPERS logo from Buenrostro’s business card to a computer. He had then had Buenrostro sign several pieces of paper with the CalPERS logo on top. Whenever he needed an investor disclosure letter, he filled in the blanks on one of those pieces of paper. He kept a folder of these blank documents behind his desk, the SEC alleged. There were several clues that these documents were forgeries, according to the SEC lawsuit: The logo was on the wrong side of the page. Although they were supposedly sent from Buenrostro at CalPERS headquarters in Sacramento, the letters actually were sent via Fed-Ex from ARVCO in Stateline, Nev. And perhaps most telling, according to the SEC lawsuit, Buenrostro signed that first letter “on behalf of ‘California Public Employees Retirement Fund/CalPERS’ (emphasis added), which was not the correct name of the institution that he had led for the preceding five years.” The SEC is seeking a court order to force Buenrostro and Villalobos to disgorge all ill-gotten gains. It filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Nevada, where both men now live. Then-California Attorney General Jerry Brown sued Villalobos and Buenrostro in May 2010.  He alleged that Villalobos lavishly entertained CalPERS employees, taking two of them on an around-the-world trip, and later provided Buenrostro with a $300,000-a-year job and a condo after he retired, to influence them to steer $40 million in commissions to him. That lawsuit is pending. . . ."

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