Roslyn Hedge Fund Manager Pleads Guilty To Bank Fraud: U.S. Attny

ROSLYN, NY — A Roslyn hedge fund manager’s words United States prosecutors say he spewed to a colleague about his involvement in the bankruptcy proceedings of Neiman Marcus might come to fruition.

Daniel Kamensky, 48, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to bankruptcy fraud for pressuring a rival to drop a higher bid so that his company could buy Neiman Marcus’s assets at a lower price, the U.S. Attorney’s office said. Kamensky “abused his position” as a Neiman Marcus bankruptcy committee member to “corrupt the process” for asset distribution and take extra profits for himself and the New York-based Marble Ridge, prosecutors said.

“He predicted — in his own words — to a colleague, ‘Do you understand…I can go to jail?’,”said U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss. “‘This is going to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.’ His fraud has indeed come to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and now has been revealed in open court.”

Kamensky, an attorney who was the principal of Marble Ridge, a hedge fund that managed more than a $1 billion in investments, had offered 20 cents per share to purchase MY Theresa Series B shares from unsecured creditors who preferred to receive cash, rather than MYT securities, as part of that settlement, according to prosecutors.

He contacted an investment bank offering between 30 and 40 cents per share and “asserted” that Marble Ridge should have the “exclusive” right to the securities and threatened to use his role on the committee to circumvent the deal, as well as pull his business from the firm, prosecutors said.

The investment bank pulled back its offer and informed the committee of Kamensky’s actions, and in a subsequent conversation, according to prosecutors, counsel for Marble Ridge “falsely informed the advisors” that Kamensky had not asked the investment bank not to bid, but instead had told them to place a bid “only if they were serious.”

Kamensky went on to try to influence what an investment bank employee would tell others, including the committee and law enforcement, about his attempt to block the bid for the MYT securities, telling the person “this conversation never happened,” prosecutors said.

Kamensky told the employee that if they continued to speak about what transpired he would go to jail because he abused his position as a fiduciary on the committee, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said that Kamensky told the employee, “‘Maybe I should go to jail. But I'm asking you not to put me in jail.” He later told an Office of the United States Trustee that the conversation was a “terrible mistake” and contained “profound errors in lapses of judgment,” according to prosecutors.

Marble Ridge later resigned from the bankruptcy committee and advised its investors that it intended to begin winding down operations and returning investor capital, prosecutors said.

The charge of bankruptcy fraud carries a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison, but prosecutors told Bloomberg that Kamensky should receive between 12 and 18 months in prison when he is sentenced on May 7.

His attorney, Joon H. Kim of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, stated: “Mr. Kamensky has admitted what he did was wrong. He deeply regrets his conduct on July 31, 2020 and the great pain it has caused his family, colleagues and others.”