NEW YORK - Gordon Hall - chairman of HealthTech International, a Mesa, Ariz.-based club chain - was sentenced to seven years and three months for taking part in a conspiracy that cost stock investors millions of dollars. He was also ordered to pay $3.8 million in restitution and barred from working in the securities industry.
Prosecutors charged that Hall worked with a now-defunct brokerage house and reputed mobsters to inflate the stock price of HealthTech artificially. They then cashed in on the stock before the price fell. A Manhattan federal jury convicted Hall in May of all 12 counts against him, including racketeering and securities and wire fraud. Twenty defendants were named in the scheme. Of those 20, 16 defendants - including alleged members of the Genovese and Bonanno organized crime families - plead guilty to securities fraud and extortion. At press time, Michael Motsykulashvili, a broker who was convicted at the same time as Hall, was still awaiting sentencing.