In a deposition last year by the Securities and Exchange Commission, former New York Stock Exchange Chairman Richard Grasso, pleaded the Fifth Amendment when asked about knowledge of specialists’ illegal activities, Bloomberg News reports, citing an attorney in the New York Attorney General’s Office. The recent disclosure by Avi Schick, deputy counsel to AG Eliot Spitzer, came after a hearing in connection with the attorney general’s lawsuit against Grasso to recover some of the former chairman’s $139.5 million compensation he received when departing the exchange. The SEC hearing in June, says Bloomberg News, did not pertain to the compensation suit, but the AG’s office asked the judge for a transcript of the proceeding.
