Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY
/
Christian Billionaire Found Guilty of Massive Wall Street Fraud
Christian Billionaire Found Guilty of Massive Wall Street Fraud
Mar 18, 2025 7:09 PM

  Supporters of Christian investor and philanthropist Bill Hwang closed their eyes and prayed in federal court as they waited for a verdict on a case accusing him of massive Wall Street fraud. Hwang himself, serene throughout the proceedings, read a Bible devotional and took notes in the marginsa practice he had done throughout the trialas he awaited the jurys ruling.

  On Wednesday, a jury found Hwang, at one time one of the wealthiest evangelicals in the US, guilty of manipulating the stock market and defrauding banks. It is one of the biggest cases of Wall Street fraud in terms of dollar amount, with banks losing $10 billion after he and his firm lied to them.

  It is the crashing conclusion of a unique institution: Hwangs Archegos Capital Management, a Christian investment firm that was named for a Greek word used to describe Christ as the author of our salvation (Heb. 2:10) and the prince of life (Acts 3:15). While Hwangs defense team had argued that his aggressive trading at Archegos was within the bounds of normal Wall Street practice, the jury found he and his team were guilty of defrauding banks of billions and artificially pumping up stock prices.

  The jury found him guilty of all but one count. He was guilty of racketeering, securities fraud, market manipulation, and wire fraud. He was found not guilty on one count of market manipulation regarding one particular stock.

  When Archegos collapsed in March 2021, the firm lost $36 billion, banks lending to Archegos lost $10 billion, and about $100 billion in market value disappeared.

  Hwangs Christian faith was woven into the long federal trial, featuring witnesses from Hwangs Christian foundation Grace and Mercy as well as references to his Christian philanthropy. The jury heard the case before a courtroom that was consistently full of Hwangs Christian supporters in New Yorka feat of endurance over eight weeks when no phones were allowed in the courtroom and the technical subject matter was making even the jury sleepy.

  Evidence in the trial alluded to the shared faith at the firm.

  As the funds collapse was beginning in March 2021, Andy Mills, top brass at Archegos and a former president of The Kings College, a Christian college in New York, sent an email to another Archegos leader. Pray that the markets rise tomorrow, he wrote, according to documents from the prosecution.

  The point at which your business plan requires divine intervention is the point at which you have a solvency problem, said prosecutor Andrew Mark Thomas in closing arguments, according to Bloomberg.

  The defense initially intended to call Mills as a witness, but he did not end up testifying.

  In the trial, the defense tried to refer to Hwangs faith and his philanthropy as a way of highlighting his humble nonWall Street ways, but the judge limited references to his personal devotion as irrelevant to a case of market manipulation.

  The governments case was that Archegos borrowed billions from banks on false pretenses and used that money to buy up large positions in a few companies, pumping up the prices artificially. The defense argued that Hwang genuinely believed in the companies he invested billions in, and that he wasnt trying to defraud the banks but simply pursuing an aggressive trading strategy.

  On Wednesday, as the jury members filed into court with their verdict, US Attorney Damian Williams slipped into the back of the courtroomshowing how seriously the Department of Justice took this case.

  The jury in this case did not know this, but Hwangs previous hedge fund, Tiger Asia, had pleaded guilty to a fraud charge in 2012. Tiger Asia was converted to Archegos in 2013.

  The governments case against Hwang centered on testimony from star witnesses Scott Becker and William Tomita, both former Hwang deputies at Archegos who had pleaded guilty and cooperated with prosecutors. Both Tomita and Becker said that when Archegos collapsed, Hwang offered them roles at his $528 million Grace and Mercy Foundation, which supports Christian ministries around the world.

  Archegos and Grace and Mercy shared the same floor of office spacewith a conference room to host regular lunchtime public reading of Scripture, a Hwang initiative. Some Archegos employees worked at both entities doing investments.

  Grace and Mercy faces a lawsuit related to Archegoss collapse, but it is not affected by this ruling. It has been operating normally since Archegos closed.

  Another witness for the prosecution was Fernanda Piedra, a top Archegos employee who became the compliance officer for Grace and Mercy. The prosecution asked her to testify about the funds final days.

  Tomitas testimony undercut the defenses image of Hwang as a humble Christian investor. He portrayed Hwang as an angry boss, yelling at traders if they took bathroom breaks. He testified that Hwang had lied to the banks that Archegos was borrowing billions from.

  Prosecutors showed the jury Bloomberg Terminal messages, recorded phone calls, and charts upon charts depicting the links between Archegoss buying practices and the movement of particular stock prices. When Archegos was on a buying spree of GSX, a Chinese educational technology company, in 2020 and 2021, the stock reached a price of more than $100 a share. It is now trading at $5 a share.

  Throughout my training at the company, I had been taught by Bill when necessary to give misleading pictures about the fund and its positions, Tomita testified, according to Bloomberg.

  Hwang, 60, faces the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison and his sentencing is set for October 28. He will be free pending sentencing on a $100 million bond.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY
Died: Sam Butcher, Artist Who Created Precious Moments
  Sam Butcher sometimes struggled to explain why Precious Moments figurines, his signature artistic creation, became such a cultural phenomenon. Half a million people joined special collectors clubs to get them. The manufacturer released 25 to 40 new ones every year. And Butcher, an art school dropout, earned tens of millions of dollars in annual royalties.   Im still trying to figure...
America’s Transfer State
  The runaway entitlements of today’s transfer state reflect some of the inherent flaws in democracy. Liberal democracy has succeeded in protecting minorities by constitutionalizing rights. But it is much harder to prevent current majorities from harming future ones, endangering the liberty and security of all.   Democracy’s critics have always worried that the numerous poor would take from the rich, impoverishing...
Why Words Matter in International Law
  Words matter. George Eliot may have commented that correct English is the slang of prigs.But there is a reason—good reason—that we employ certain words and not others, and a reason that we demand accuracy from our students, our lawyers, and our thinkers. Lazy use of big words adds to smug self-righteousness and it is not helpful when talking about serious...
Died: Lin Chih
  Peter Chih-Ping Lin (林治平), who launched a Christian magazine for those outside the church that grew into a sprawling, eclectic ministry, died of pancreatic cancer on April 27 at the age of 86 in Taipei. With little financial support, in 1973, Lin founded what became Christian Cosmic Light Holistic Care Organization, which sought to reach non-Christians through art, academic research,...
The Chosen Season 4 Available for Streaming—‘Finally’
  After months of delay and a legal dispute, the first episode of The Chosen, Season Four, will drop on the shows app at 7 p.m. Eastern on Sunday.   The wait is finally over. The response from those whove seen Season 4 in theaters was that this is our best season, so I cant wait to deliver these episodes free and...
Embracing the American Family
  Early in my former career as a faculty member, I was teaching at a large public university and cultivated a reputation as a professor who actually knew his students’ names. I couldn’t help but notice, then, when a promising young African American woman who was doing very well in the course stopped attending or submitting assignments. Concerned, I e-mailed her...
The Harrowing of Hollywood
  For much of the twentieth century, films about faith were either earnest epics such as The Greatest Story Ever Told and The Robe or syrupy depictions of self-effacing clergy as in The Bells of St. Mary’s and Boys Town. The end of the old production code in the late ’60s provided new opportunities not only for more challenging depictions of...
The World We Have Lost
  It’s a well-known fact that historians generally don’t like historical fiction. Movies set in past periods of history, “based on real events” or not, generally put our teeth on edge. Such fictions are ordinarily filled with ridiculous anachronisms. The anachronisms are most obvious when mushy modern phrases from our therapeutic culture—urging us to share our feelings or hoping we are...
God Is Worthy of Devotion
  God is Worthy of Devotion   Weekly Overview:   It’s vital to the Christian life that we as sons and daughters of the most high God allow our affections to be stirred by the loving, powerful nature of our heavenly Father. Too often we feel that God is distant or separated from us. Too often we allow misconceptions or lies to place...
Cultivating the American Life
  Several years ago, my wife and I moved to an old stone farmhouse in a rural part of Frederick County, Maryland. In all the time we spent restoring the house and cultivating the land, however, we did not think much about the house’s history. In fact, for a long time we had naively assumed—and erroneously told people—that the house was...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved