NEW YORK Stock workers convicted of fraud for skimming from clients' funds

The small indiscretions added up to millions.
NEW YORK (AP) -- A pair of New York Stock Exchange specialists were convicted Friday of securities fraud in a case where they were accused of stealing $1 million apiece by skimming small amounts of money from stocks they were entrusted to oversee.
Michael Hayward and Michael Stern, who worked for Van der Moolen Specialists USA LLC, were each convicted by a Manhattan federal jury of a single count of securities fraud. They face up to 20 years in prison when they are sentenced Oct. 27.
The jury acquitted the pair of the lesser count of conspiracy, which carried a maximum five-year jail term, and of several other securities fraud counts.
In closing arguments one week ago, Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Barkow said the two defendants repeatedly stole pennies until it added up to $1 million dollars apiece.
The pair continued the practice from January 1999 to June 2003, Barkow said.
Their defense
Defense attorney Jonathan Bach, who represents Hayward, said the two were guilty of nothing more than innocent mistakes that occurred on fewer than 1 percent of the trades they oversaw. He said the government tried to make those mistakes look like intentional fraud. Hayward made less than $1,000 from the trades, Bach said.
Outside court, both defendants and their lawyers declined to comment.
Over the course of the monthlong trial, the prosecution claimed that Hayward, 55, and Stern, 53, revealed their guilt in e-mail exchanges after they learned of the probe.
The trial focused attention on specialists, who play the crucial role of matching buyers and sellers in individual stocks.
Instead of matching a buyer who wanted a stock at $1 with a seller who wanted to sell at that price, for example, Hayward and Stern would find a buyer willing to pay $1.05, pick up the stock themselves at $1 and then quickly flip it, prosecutors said.