Fired UBS Adviser Reignites Palm Beach Scandal Over Rich Widow
“Holy crap!” That’s how Craig Price, a UBS AG senior vice president , told securities regulators he reacted when he saw the $2,600 tab for a client-development dinner he attended at an upscale Palm Beach , Florida, restaurant. It wasn’t the size of the bill that stunned him. It was who paid for it -- an ailing, 90-year-old UBS client. The client wasn’t even at the dinner, but the broker who managed her trust was. So was the broker’s girlfriend, a longtime confidant of the client who had power of attorney over the trust. The trust paid the bill. Price dug deeper . He says he ultimately discovered bigger charges to the trust: a Bentley in the girlfriend’s name, a trip to Toronto on a private jet and an attempted fund transfer to buy a penthouse apartment in the girlfriend’s name. Nancy Tsai and Dennis Melchior Photographer: Patrick McMullan/PMC Price alerted his superiors, setting off a chain of events that would become tabloid fodder. The broker, Dennis Melchior, was quickly fired fo...