NEWARK, N.J. — Citing extensive fraud at the Crazy Eddie discount electronics chain, U.S. District Judge Harold Ackerman, ruling late last month, said two former executives and a record distributor that did business with the retailer would have to repay $72 million in illegal profits to stockholders, according to a story today in a local northern New Jersey newspaper, The Record.
Sam M. Antar, father of Crazy Eddie co-founder Eddie Antar; Allen Antar, Eddie Antar’s brother; and Benjamin Kuszer, a record distributor, and also Sam Antar’s son-in-law, were ordered to repay the money made in illegal profits.
The money will be used, according to the article, to partially repay more than 10,000 company shareholders who are said to have lost between $150 million and $200 million when Crazy Eddie collapsed in the late 1980s. About $120 million already has been recovered, mostly from bank accounts kept around the globe by Eddie Antar.
Eddie Antar and his brother Mitchell were convicted of stock fraud in 1993, but their brother Allen was acquitted. The convictions were overturned in 1995, but Eddie and Mitchell pleaded guilty rather than face another trial. Both have finished prison terms, with Eddie paying nearly $80 million in penalties during the mid-1990s.
At its peak, Crazy Eddie operated 43 stores and had $350 million in annual sales.
