CalPERS Scandal Suit: What We Knew, What We Didn't
California AG Jerry Brown yesterday filed civil charges against former CalPERS CEO Fred Buenrostro and ex-CalPERS board member Al Villalobos, alleging fraud related to CalPERS investments in private equity firms Apollo Management and Aurora Capital Group. No charges against the firms -- both of which had hired Villalobos as a placement agent to secure fund commitments from CalPERS and other public pension systems. This news should not come as a surprise to peHUB readers. We've known for quite some time that Brown was investigating CalPERS, and also that there were some obvious problems with the Villalobos-CalPERS relationship. For example, we reported last October that Villalobos was not a registered broker-dealer when pitching Apollo funds. Seems that's in violation of California law. We also wondered about a series of placement agent disclosure forms, which CalPERS released last year with Buenrostro's signature. More specifically, we wondered why they had a fax stamp from Apollo, as if CalPERS didn't have its own copies. According to Brown, they didn't (and never did).
