"Come grow with us," shouted penny-stock pitcher Robert Brennan over the clatter of his helicopter as he urged investors in television ads during the early 1980s to entrust him with their money.
Last week, however, it was state and federal authorities who made Brennan "come with us" when they arrested him while taking an early morning shower at his Colts Neck, N.J., home in connection with alleged bankruptcy fraud.
Brennan, 56, who once ran First Jersey Securities, faced two indictments, both relating to his cashing $500,000 in casino chips. State prosecutors claimed this year in a civil proceeding that Brennan attempted to hide the money he got from cashing chips at the Mirage casino in Las Vegas in 1995. The state raised the issue of whether Brennan was improperly shielding assets to keep them from being used to pay back millions to aggrieved investors.
Brennan pleaded not guilty to the charges. According to new reports, Bill Parcells, the former New York Jets football coach, put up $150,000 of Brennan’s $500,000 bail amount.