D’Amato Criticized For Stock Deal

Sen. Alfonse M. D’Amato, who has led Republican attacks on alleged ethical breaches by the president and first lady in the Whitewater case, has come under criticism himself in a government report that says he reaped one-day profits of $37,125 in a questionable stock deal.

D’Amato, R-N.Y., chairman of a special Senate committee investigating Whitewater for the past year, was criticized in a confidential report commissioned by the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission which was made public late Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Joyce Hens Green, who said the SEC recommended its release and D’Amato did not object.

The report said the brokerage house of Stratton Oakmont of Lake Success, N.Y., violated its own rules by allocating shares of a hot start-up issue, Computer Marketplace Inc., to D’Amato’s account.

The deal is questionable, the report said, because it came at a time when SEC enforcement actions were pending against Stratton three years ago and while D’Amato was the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, which has influence with SEC commissioners.

The report said the senator was allocated “a much larger number” of shares in the initial public offering than other customers with accounts of the same size. Although D’Amato is not accused of any wrongdoing, the report said the special treatment he received raises suspicions about the firm’s motives.

“Stratton’s bending of its own rules to service a U.S. senator who, through his status as senior minority member of the Senate Banking Committee, wielded influence over the SEC raises suspicions about Stratton’s motives,” said the report made by Charles Loewenson, an attorney and an outside consultant to the SEC.