Stephen P./Steven J. Corso's name game interrupted

"Steven John Corso and Stephen P. Corso are the Same Person." Thus states a headline in a memorandum of law sent out by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) yesterday (August 17).

In 2009, Stephen P. Corso, an accountant, was convicted in Connecticut of stealing $5 million from his clients and attempting tax evasion. He spent a year in prison and was ordered to pay restitution of $5.4 million, the process of which is "ongoing," says the securities agency. The SEC in 2009 banned Corso from practicing before the commission.

According to the commission memorandum, Corso wound up in Encinitas as an accountant filing information on penny stocks with the SEC — something he was ordered not to do. He had changed his name from Stephen P. Corso to Steven J. Corso and set up Corso & Co. at 572 Shasta Drive, according to promotional material that I dug up. There is no phone listing for such an enterprise or any Corso in Encinitas. Someone with a name close to Steven J. Corso resides in Orange County but was not taking calls today.

In his promotional materials, Steven J. Corso claims he has degrees from George Washington University, New York University, and Cornell. According to the SEC, each university had no record of such a person, although New York University does list a graduate named Stephen P. Corso, a 1977 accounting grad.

In his promotional materials, Steven J. Corso claims to be a "Security [sic] and Exchange Commission" consultant and attorney. (Accountants should not be so careless.)

According to a Wall Street Journal article this week, Stephen P. Corso helped the federal government by wearing a wire to record gangster conversation at the Crazy Horse Too topless club in Las Vegas. He also informed on mobsters in Boston and Youngstown, and on some Russians tied to organized crime. At his sentencing in 2009, his lawyer said Corso has a target on his back. The Journal reached him and he refused to comment.