Death of financier accused of Ponzi scheme revives old questions about Taiwanese native’s past

Financier’s sudden death revives old questions

SANTA ANA, Calif. — International financier Danny Pang seemed to represent the ultimate success story: a self-made Taiwanese immigrant with a gold-plated resume and an investment company that raked in hundreds of millions from the wealthy in his homeland.

But Pang’s life story had a darker side, a strange tale that began when his ex-stripper wife was murdered in their home and ended last Saturday when Pang died suddenly of unknown causes as federal authorities pursued him for allegedly defrauding investors of millions.

Pang’s death has left investors frustrated and federal authorities empty-handed, but it has revived old questions about the flashy businessman’s past, including speculation at the trial of his wife’s alleged killer that Pang was tied to a violent Asian crime syndicate.

“My first reaction when I heard he was dead was, ‘How?’ He’s been linked to all these things, and now he’s involved in this indictment which involved his finances,” said Michael Molfetta, an attorney who defended Pang’s corporate lawyer in the murder case. “It’s just one of those cases that through his death, some things may come to light.”

The Orange County coroner ruled out foul play, but deferred a cause of death until toxicology reports are complete, a process that could take months.

Federal prosecutors said they will likely dismiss the case against Pang. But they’ll monitor reports from the court-appointed receiver managing assets seized by the Securities and Exchange Commission for evidence that would implicate others at the Irvine-based Private Equity Management Group, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe McNally.

Pang was indicted in July on charges of illegally structuring financial transactions to evade currency-reporting requirements, just months after the SEC seized his assets and those of his two investment companies.

In its civil lawsuit, the SEC alleged Pang and his companies raised hundreds of millions of dollars from mostly Taiwanese investors since at least 2003 through fraudulent securities.

Pang and his firms falsely represented him as a former senior vice president and high-tech merger adviser from investment house Morgan Stanley with a master’s in business from the University of California at Irvine, the SEC alleged. In fact, Pang never worked at Morgan Stanley nor did he obtain any degrees from UC Irvine.

The court-appointed receiver said Pang used investor funds as a “personal piggy bank” to fund $35 million on a fleet of jets, $1 million on a cruise for employees and $1.5 million on a China vacation for his staff.

In a statement issued through a spokesman, Pang’s family blasted the government and said Pang would have been proven innocent at trial.

“For the past five months, Danny was subjected to a relentless attack of innuendo and false allegations, and was denied any opportunity to defend himself,” the statement read.

Pang’s recent legal woes and sudden death revived fascination over his wife’s murder and the unsettling questions raised at the time about the high-flying financier’s life.

In May 1997, Pang was away on business when his wife, a former exotic dancer named Janie Pang, was gunned down in the middle of the day at their house by a man with a pencil-thin mustache.

Investigators quickly settled on Pang’s corporate lawyer, Hugh “Randy” McDonald, as the prime suspect, but McDonald fled and faked his suicide on the Golden Gate Bridge. Police finally caught up with him four years later in a Los Angeles suburb.

At trial, Molfetta used a report prepared jointly by the FBI and the Orange County and Los Angeles sheriff’s departments and other evidence to cast doubt on McDonald’s guilt and shift attention to Pang.

The 10-page police report noted that Pang was a possible member of the United Bamboo Triad, a Taiwanese organized crime group, and should not be excluded as a suspect in his wife’s murder. The report said there was no proof Pang was a gang member, but recommended that investigators dig deeper — which they never did — before eliminating him as a suspect.

Jurors ultimately deadlocked 10-2 in favor of acquitting McDonald and prosecutors dropped the case.

“It never made any sense,” Molfetta said. “Who the hell goes to their corporate lawyer to get somebody killed? It’s nonsense.”

Juror Monica Bartolone, now 74, recalled that she and several other jurors believed Pang had his wife killed. She found it odd, she said, that he didn’t attend the trial and invoked his constitutional right not to testify to prevent self-incrimination.

“He was the one several of us on the jury thought had her killed. We really felt that,” she said in a recent telephone interview. “They were going to get divorced and we felt that she knew a lot of stuff.”

Pang’s attorney, Allan Stokke, said in a written response to questions that the FBI report was “utterly unreliable” and that agents had confused his client with another man by the same name.

Pang was devastated by his wife’s murder and tried for years to find her killer after the case went cold. Pang wanted to testify, but Stokke said he advised him not to.

“Mr. Pang had absolutely nothing to do with Janie Pang’s murder,” he said, “and it would be false and defamatory for anyone to suggest otherwise.”

Still, the latest case has enthralled Bartolone and others who brushed through Pang’s life so many years ago.

“I’ve been following the paper on the things that they were going to try him on. This will take care of that, I guess,” Bartolone said. “I wonder if they’ll ever find all the money.”