Andrew Caspersen

What the public record shows

Andrew Caspersen — a partner and managing director at PJT Partners’ Park Hill Group, and a member of a prominent Wall Street family — pleaded guilty in July 2016 to securities fraud and wire fraud and was sentenced to 4 years in prison for defrauding investors of over $38 million and misappropriating over $8 million from his employer. This is a criminal conviction — not an allegation.

The scheme — fake private equity

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, Caspersen built an elaborate fiction:

• He told family, friends, and a charitable foundation that a private-equity firm had given him an allocation in a “practically riskless” debt instrument paying 15–20%.
• The investments were entirely made up — backed by fake fund entities, fictional financiers, and phony email addresses he controlled.
• He used incoming investor money to trade in his own brokerage account (where he lost most of it) and to pay fake “interest” to earlier investors — a Ponzi structure.

Why we rate this 1 / 10 — Avoid

A guilty plea and a four-year sentence from an insider with every credential imaginable — elite firm, elite family, elite résumé. Caspersen is the definitive lesson that pedigree is not diligence.

Red flags this case teaches

• “Riskless” or “practically riskless” + 15-20% returns is a contradiction. Real near-riskless yields are low.
• Insider access to an “exclusive” deal is a classic hook — verify the fund and the counterparty independently, not through the person pitching you.
• Confirm entities exist through regulators and independent records, not the promoter’s own paperwork or email.

Bottom line

Convicted and sentenced. The most impressive résumé on Wall Street still faked an entire fund. Verify the investment, never the pedigree of the person selling it.

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