A Manhattan securities broker who stole $600,000 from clients won’t serve a day in prison – because he was so addled, he gave the money to con artists who’d e-mailed him from Nigeria to say he’d won inheritances and the lottery.
Michael Axel, 69 – a con man who got conned – was a heavy drinker for 30 years and suffers from alcohol-induced dementia, prosecutors said yesterday as he was sentenced to five years’ probation.
“He is a predator on the elderly,” a victim’s son, labor arbitrator Robert Douglas, told state Supreme Court Justice Michael Obus, calling the no-prison deal “outrageous and unconscionable.”
But the judge stuck to the sentence, noting that while the theft was large, Axel has made restitution and shown remorse and was himself victimized.
“I’m very sorry about what I did. I’m deeply embarrassed and humiliated by my actions,” Axel told the court, adding that he has been sober for six months and is taking antidepressants.
His victims included a high-school teacher and a 90-year-old woman living in a nursing home.