In court, his lawyer described him as "the finest type of Californian." He had been president or chairman of ten companies, a director of 16, a member of the best clubs. But last week San Francisco's backslapping, bearlike Virgil David Dardi, 57, paced nervously in Manhattan's West Street jail, unable to raise $100,000 bail. He had just been sentenced to seven years in prison for his part in one of the most ingeniously bizarre stock swindles in modern history—after the longest criminal trial in U.S. Federal Court history (TIME, Feb. 22). The activities of Dardi's United Dye & Chemical...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
