MIAMI — June 10, 2002 — In a move breaking ranks with the long-standing closed club of attorneys who are management veterans from the US Securities & Exchange Commission, Florida attorney Gary Langan Goodenow of Miami, Florida, became the first such veteran to call publicly for present SEC Chairman, Harvey Pitt, to resign. In an Op/Ed article in the June 7, 2002 edition of The Miami Herald, Goodenow alleged that Pitt’s private meetings with his former high profile clients in his SEC office, clients presently under investigation by the SEC Division of Enforcement, improperly compromises the deterrence of securities fraud.
Pointing out that the SEC is a small agency that cannot ever prosecute all fraud, Goodenow highlights that the ability of a SEC staff attorney to investigate and prosecute a case against any former client of Mr. Pitt’s, is grossly compromised by either the appearance or reality that those former clients have direct access to meet privately with Mr. Pitt. Goodenow contrasted these private meetings, with Mr. Pitt’s actions at a recent "investors’ summit". There, Mr. Pitt would only take written questions from the investing public and then he decided those he would deign to answer.
While at the SEC enforcement division in Miami, Mr. Goodenow climbed the ranks from staff attorney, to branch chief, to Senior Litigation Counsel and finally to Senior Counsel, where he made the final recommendation on those cases the office would investigate or prosecute, and those it would decline. He is presently in private practice, and he can be reached at goodenow@bellsouth.net and 305-757-5235. The article is available at The Miami Herald web site (http://www.miami.com/mld/miami/3416593.htm).
Contact:
Gary Langan Goodenow, 305-757-5235
goodenow@bellsouth.net
