B-Schooler Receives Probation Sentence

A University student, charged in December with insider trading and required to withdraw from the Business School, was sentenced in New York federal court this week for filing false tax returns.

Randall D. Cecola was sentenced to six-years probation less than two months after an out-of-court settlement on charges of insider trading brought against him by the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC).

Alan R. Kaufman, the New York attorney representing Cecola, said the six-year Probation period is "certainly what we were hoping for."

"I would have been very disappointed if Randy had received a Jail sentence. We were very gratified that the judge gave him a probationary sentence,"Kaufman said yesterday.

Kaufman said his client "was relieved," afterthe sentencing. "Who would want the alternative?"Kaufman said. Cecola could have received amaximum penalty of six years in prison for histax offense.

B-School administrators required Cecola towithdraw from the MBA program in December becauseof his involvement in the Dennis B. Levine insidertrading scandal, which he had participated inwhile a financial analyst with the New York firmof Lazard Freres & Co.

"Randy spoke [at the sentencing] for may be aminute and told the judge how he felt troubled forthe pain he has brought to his family and Lazard,and how shattering it was that Harvard had notallowed him to finish his last semester," Kaufmansaid.

Without pleading guilty, Cecola turned over hisillegal profits of $21,800 to the SEC in December.

Simultaneously, the SEC prohibited Cecola andfive other businessmen implicated in the scandal,including Levine and Robert M. Wilkis '71, fromworking for investment or municipal securitydivisions of companies in the future.

"Wilkis disgorged his illegal profits ofapproximately $3 million and was finedapproximately $300,000" under federal law, saidSEC spokesman Charles Larson.

John Lynch, assistant dean of the MBA programsaid that Cecola was "asked to withdraw" by afaculty committee but that standard B-Schoolpolicy will allow him to apply for readmissionanytime within the next five years.

According to Kaufman, Cecola will probablyreapply to the B-School, but not this year.

"The message we got is that if Randy reappliedfor September of 1987 that he wouldn't beadmitted," Kaufman said. "Harvard is looking for along period of separation while Randy canestablish his right to return."

Cecola's former classmates described him as aquiet loner. "He kept to himself very much, thoughhe was friendly with everybody," said second-yearstudent John Lindsey. "I think we're all a bitsurprised.