It must have been one of his other personalities that took the plea deal.
Kenneth Marsh, who claims to be delusional with at least three personalities, admitted running a boiler-room operation in Staten Island and was to be sentenced today for securities fraud.
But after a judge announced he planned to give Marsh the higher end of the sentencing guideline — 10 years — for being “the ringleader” of the scheme, his lawyers quickly asked for a postponement and intend to argue for a lower sentence next week or to try and wriggle out of the plea and go to trial.
Just last month, Brooklyn federal Judge Jack Weinstein indicated that he was considering giving Marsh half that time – five years in prison.
There was also the possibility that the judge would give Marsh a break partly because the confessed con-man essentially believes that three people inhabit his body.
“There was Mr. Marsh…there was Little Kenny. Fred was the bad guy,” Maurice Preter, a Columbia University psychiatry professor testified in the case.
The psychiatrist said it appeared that Marsh really did have different personas and other infirmities that raise questions about why he defrauded more 5,500 investors out of their life savings.
“There’s a lot of real craziness – real delusional stuff – in this strange story,” Preter told Weinstein.
Today, however, the judge said his perceptions of Marsh had changed dramatically after hearing “rather harrowing testimony” from victims of the boiler room scheme, and he labeled the confessed con-man “a major criminal.”
“I’ve now seen this crime in its full depth. It’s a very serious crime. He’s the ringleader – he cheated thousands of people out of their life savings,” Weinstein said today.
Before the victims’ spoke in August, the judge had listened to detailed testimony from the psychiatrist that Marsh was struggling with reality.
To populate his imaginary world, Marsh dreamed up friends who hailed from a social orbit he aspired to inhabit.
“He sort of created for himself a world of important men, anyone from George Soros to all of these bizarre names of powerful waspy fifth generation luminaries in his field, which is finance investing,” Preter, the psychiatrist, said.
For example, Marsh’s operation – known as Gryphon Financial – ran a Web site listing executives educated at Harvard and claimed to be headquartered on Wall Street, with satellite offices in London and Sydney.
In reality, the firm was located in a Staten Island strip mall and the impressive executives were non-existent.
The psychiatrist testified on Marsh’s behalf that these fabrications were just the imaginings of a child.
“He’s a husky 44-year old with tattoos, but he’s basically a four-year-old boy in arrested development,” Preter said.
Federal prosecutors, however, say Marsh’s infirmities are just as phony as his stock business.
When Marsh showed up at the psychiatrist’s office with an image of an X-shaped trading desk, like Michael Milken’s, and a photo of Rocky Balboa, prosecutors suggested that the boiler-room operator was pretending to be mentally ill.
“He committed an exceptionally premeditated fraud. It’s a con game,” said Assistant US Attorney Roger Burlingame.
Last month, the judge also heard yet another side of Marsh, when the prosecutors played secretly-recorded tapes of the trader giving a rousing pep talk to his boiler-room sales force.
“Set them up for that f—ing deal!,” Marsh yelled on the tape. “This trade is sending my kid to f—ing Harvard! We’re here to f—ing make money!
The judge, who said he believes that Marsh “has had psychiatric problems” and noted “the complexity of the matter,” is now scheduled to hear arguments from defense attorney Alan Futerfas next week as to why Marsh should receive a lower sentence or perhaps jettison the plea deal and go to trial.
mmaddux@nypost.com