Jesse Bogdonoff (born
April 1, 1955), was financial advisor to the Government of
Tonga and Court
Jester to the Tongan Royal Court. He was embroiled in a financial scandal.
Scandal
Bodgdonoff made headlines in 2001 and 2002 after being accused of mismanaging millions of dollars from the nation of Tonga. He had been the Tongan government's financial advisor since 1994, claiming to have made the government millions in the rising stock markets of the booming 1990s. Bogdonoff managed the Tonga Trust Fund after it had been funded by the
Government of Tonga in 1986 in a scheme in which the Tongan Government sold passports to frightened Hong Kong nationals who were unnerved by the 1987 expiration of the British lease on
Hong Kong from
China.
In 1999 Bogdonoff recommended moving the Tonga portfolio out of the bulging stock market bubble and into a pool of insurance backed investments called viatical contracts managed by Millennium Asset Management Company. In 2001 he learned that Herchell Hyatt, the owner of Millennium Asset Management Company, had stolen millions of Tonga's money and had filed false accounting statements for the Tonga account. Bogdonoff arranged a recovery program for Tonga backed by Lloyds of London to protect against the losses.
The Tongan government became paralyzed in an internal political debate lead by the Tongan Democracy movement in its effort to gain ground by embarrassing the Royal Family which dismissed the only senior government ministers who were attempting to implement the recovery plan to save the Tonga Trust Fund. Without the recovery plan the Tonga Trust Fund was effectively wiped out. The government proceeded to sue Bogdonoff and all the parties involved in the transaction for fraud and negligence.
Without admitting guilt of any fraud, Bogdonoff settled his part of the law suit with the Government of Tonga in 2004.
Jester
Bogdonoff’s status as official court jester to the King of Tonga Court made sensational news copy when the financial scandal hit the media in 2001. Tonga was the first Royal Court to appoint a Court
Jester in modern times,
Taufa'ahau Tupou IV, the King of Tonga, appointing Bogdonoff to the role in 1999.
References
