Sater's Early Childhood Years Thru Wall Street
1966-1993
CHILDHOOD
Felix Sater's family left Russia as political refugees during the Cold War, being one of the rare families able to do so (which is interesting enough by itself to note). They were fairly wealthy in Russia, and his father owned a meat market. However, the religious persecution of Jews caused them to leave everything behind and start over in America. After a brief period of time in Israel, and approximately three months in Maryland, Coney Island in New York became his family's permanent home.
"We left a life of comfort to become immigrants simply because three generations of my family were trying to get the hell out of there. Both my great grandparents on both my maternal and paternal side were both executed by the Soviets. My grandfather, my father's father, watched his father getting shot in the head by a Soviet commissar. My mother's father was sent to the gulags because he had a couple of chickens, a horse, and a cow..." - Felix Sater
As a kid, Felix hawked the Jewish Forward newspaper on the boardwalk in Brighton Beach and attended the "tough" Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn. After graduation, he attended Pace University and had a couple different jobs, one of them being a cold-caller part-time at Bear Sterns. Prior to that, he had been a limo driver by night, attending class by day. His major at Pace was accounting, but after Sater saw the size of the paychecks of some of the guys at Bear Sterns who had graduated beyond cold-calling, he dropped out of college and focused solely on Wall Street.
For those unfamiliar, cold-calling in this context is simply referring to making unsolicited contact with people and pitching them on the sale of stock. If he didn't have any talents already with sales and perhaps stretching the truth, he would have gained experience performing the art of cold-calling on Wall Street.
WALL STREET CAREER
Felix Sater's career on Wall Street began at the age of 20 in 1986. According to FINRA Broker Check records, Sater began his work briefly at Broadchild Securities, Pace Rooney, and then there's an apparent nine-month gap of employment between June of 1986 to March of 1987. He spent the longest period of time on Wall Street working at Gruntal & Co. between March of 1988 until either August or October of 1991 (unclear per the dates). Below we will briefly take a look at each of these listed.
Broadchild Securities Corp. - (2mos.)
March 19, 1986 to May 19, 1986
By 1986 at the age of 20, he was working for Broadchild Securities. This employment lasted approximately six weeks to two months from March 19, 1986 to May 19, 1986. He moved quickly on to Pace Rooney, Inc. This may have been due to the fact this brokerage appears to have been encountering difficulties and appears to have closed or cancelled on August 26, 1986.
Broadchild Securities appears to have also been at some point D. H. Blair Investors Corp. or affiliated with it.
**Note: Anything noted A.R. Baron or D.H. Blair will be important later when Patrick Byrne’s story intersects oddly with Felix Sater and the Spygate-Russiagate controversies. Byrne intersects with Sater earlier than the 2016 election period. In the late 2000s, as well as later in 2013, Felix is mentioned on Byrne’s website with reporting by Mark Mitchell. In Byrne’s entire taking-on-Wall-Street crusade of the 2000s using his Deep Capture website as well as journalist Mark Mitchell (and leading up to the 2008 financial crisis), it is the Milken network and both of these earlier brokerage firms, A.R. Baron and D.H Blair, who Byrne/Mitchell target as being tied to organized crime, as well as Felix Sater.
Open Corporates Info: D.H. Blair Investors Corp.
Pace Rooney, Inc. - (6wks.)
May 2, 1986 - June 19, 1986
Felix was then employed with Pace Rooney, Inc. from May 2, 1986 to June 19, 1986. This brokerage firm was expelled by 1988.
NYTimes, 1987 - 'Rooney, Pace Broker Closing'
The New York-based investment firm, which has been plagued with financial and legal troubles, said all customers' securities and funds are being held by Bear, Stearns & Company, ''so customers need not be concerned about their accounts.'' It added that all customer inquiries should be directed to Bear, Stearns.
Rooney, Pace said it would seek new business opportunities in ''related fields, using its remaining assets, including its net operating loss.''
Nine-Month Employment Gap -
June 20, 1986 - March 12, 1987
For unknown or perhaps even unimportant reasons, there are two 9-month gaps in Felix's Wall Street employment history. This is the first gap; Felix was aged 20.
Shearson Lehman Brothers - (15mos.)
March 13, 1987 - June 24, 1988
Felix resumed work on Wall St, this time with Shearson Lehman Brothers. He is employed there for about ten weeks. It appears he began employment with his next firm by June 10, but Shearson Lehman Brothers on FINRA has him employed there until June 24th, so it is somewhere within this period of two weeks.
Moseley Securities - (9mos.)
June 10, 1987 - March 9, 1988
His employment at Moseley was the second longest thus far he'd remained at one brokerage firm; a period of almost nine months.
Nine-Month Employment Gap #2- (9mos.)
3/10/1988 - 12/19/1988
This is the second and final Wall Street employment gap according to Sater's Wall Street records on FINRA. It is between March and December of 1988.
It is unclear what may have caused these employment gaps early on in Sater's life, or if he was doing other work on Wall Street which was for some reason not captured in FINRA's records. He was not married nor have any children during this time. At this point, he was aged 22.
Shearson Lehman Hutton Inc. - (~2.5wks.)
12/20/1988 - 1/07/1989
Shortly before the end of 1988, Felix pops back up on Wall St. working for Shearson Lehman Hutton. This appears to be the same firm as Shearson Lehman, as Shearson did acquire E.F. Hutton in 1988. He doesn’t last long there though, either. By January 7, he’s gone. It’s two months later he pops up at the next firm.
Gruntal & Co. - (~2.5yrs.)
3/07/1989 - 10/09/1991
Two months following his departure at Shearson Lehman Hutton, FINRA has Felix documented as starting at Gruntal & Co., which would end up being the firm he would work with for the longest period of time (over three years).
This would also later be one of the brokerage firms Patrick Byrne and Mark Mitchell (journalist) would make allegations towards on his Deep Capture website. Byrne also strangely became wrapped up in the 2016 election by his sexual involvement and encounters with Maria Butina, a reported individual named in the Mueller Report who later spent some in jail before being deported to Russia.
Lehman Bros. - (~1.5yrs.)
8/29/1991 - 3/05/1993
It's unclear if he actually left Gruntal in Aug or October as recorded in FINRA, but somewhere around there he started working at Lehman Brothers around the time of the bar fight.
Bar Fight - October 1991
People V. Felix Sater - below is the close to all of the 35-page document regarding the trial and appeal. Keep in mind this fight occurred nearly thirty years ago when Sater was 25 years old.
Date of Bar Fight - October 1, 1991
Indictment date - October 29, 1991
Jury Trial Start Date - February 5, 1992
Judgment Motion Denied date - March 31, 1993, when Sater was appealing the original jury verdict sentence of one and a half to four and a half years to one count of assault in the first degree.
Appeal Date - April 2, 1993, taking bail pending appeal
These dates become confusing when contrasted with pictures of two framed photos Felix Sater would post on Twitter after former President George H. W. Bush's death. These are personally ascribed to a "Mr. Sater" and expressing "Thank you for all you've done to help us build a more promising future for America," (dated June 8, 1992), and another also addressed to a "Mr. Sater" with the statement "Thank you so much for your support!," (undated).
It is unclear if these were given to Felix Sater or his father, but it would take 26 years for him to share them publicly.
The case as presented if you wish to read in full:
Conclusion
Already, even before we proceed to the stock fraud, you can see Felix's life on an interesting path. Felix's father is involved with organized crime involving racketeering in New York, and he was enjoying a luxurious lifestyle working on Wall Street and the bar fight in 1991 being the catalyst which changed the directory of his life. Even during the time in 1992 after he was already indicted for the bar fight and the jury trial in the case not yet started,this inexplicable picture frame with a message from the first former Bush President. In 1992, Sater also still had his broker's license and was working at Lehman Brothers.
In the August 2019 interview he would later have with David Corn and Michael Isikoff on the Yahoo Skullduggery podcast, he would make the following remarks:
"But he didn't want to press charges. The DA wouldn't let him. Because the DA wanted to put pressure on my dad." - Felix Sater
Let's move on to what we know of the stock scam period here, if you're moving along the website in chronological format. We're going to review excerpts from a book written about this scam by a co-author, David Berry, and one of Sater's partners in the stock scam, Salvatore Lauria.