Crazy Eddie Founder Charged: Eddie Antar and...

Crazy Eddie Founder Charged: Eddie Antar and former top management of the electronics chain that advertised “insane” prices have been charged with insider trading and systematically altering financial books to inflate earnings. Antar directed a “massive financial fraud” that artificially boosted pretax income by $29 million from 1985 to 1987, the Securities and Exchange Commission said in a complaint filed in federal court in Newark, N.J. The alleged scheme included exaggerating inventory and falsely reducing bills to suppliers, the agency said. Antar, a high school dropout who built the chain to 43 outlets from a single store in Brooklyn, N.Y., sold 5.6 million shares of company stock for $60 million knowing that the stock price was based on exaggerated information, the SEC said.