BOSTON -- A former commodities options broker jailed for defrauding investors of almost $27 million in a celebrated financial scandal has denied wrongdoing and has started new firms after his early prison release.
Alan H. Abrahams -- who under the assumed name of James A. Carr ran Lloyd, Carr & Co. -- told the Boston Globe Thursday he was jailed because of intense pressure from major brokerage houses jealous of his explosive sales record.
'A demon was :onstructed and my name and face were painted on it,' said Abrahams, who was granted an early release from the Federal Correctional Institute in Ray Brook, N.Y., on Feb. 1.
'I didn't do anything wrong,' he told the newspaper.
Abrahams, who before his arrest was :hauffeured to and from his Marblehead home in a black Rolls Royce, was accused in 1980 of overseeing an operation that charged commissions of up to 500 percent and misled thousands of investors about the high risks involved in the commodities options markets.
In 18 months, Lloyd, Carr & Co. was founded and and compiled sales of more than $27 million in commodities options. Authorities finally discovered he was a New Jersey prison escapee before the Lloyd, Carr operation began to unfold.
He pleaded guilty to seven of 50 counts of fraud in 1980 and was sentenced to seven years in prison.
Incorporation papers for three new companies have been filed in the name of Abrahams daughter Alison, 20, in the past month.
X-O-X Corp., X-O-X Leasing and Acceptance Corp. and Mercantile Rare Coin Corp. are all based in a makeshift Boston office, near Abrahams's former headquarters where he once commanded 1,000 options salesmen in 12 offices across the country, the Globe said.
Abrahams, who said he has :ontinued to use the name James A. Carr, said he returned to Boston to do business 'because it's my home.'
Abrahams told the Globe he is working as 'an assistant sales manager or sales consultant' for X-O-X leasing, a company he said was founded days after his release from prison in February. He said he intends to lease cars, trucks and buses 'all over the country. X-O-X Corp. he told the newspaper, will arrange financing for the leasing company's customers.
