Suspect's history of heated words

Vincent P. McCrudden's words have gotten him in trouble before, records show.

Several years ago he entered a 19-month criminal diversion program after he'd threatened a person in the securities industry in Chicago, federal prosecutor Christopher Caffarone said Friday in court.

Last year regulators suspended McCrudden and fined him tens of thousands of dollars for repeatedly threatening employees at a hedge fund. He was fighting over expenses and commissions; he tried to bully the firm into lying about firing him, according to an report on McCrudden by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

It wasn't clear whether the incidents referred to in court and in the report were related.

McCrudden's attorney, Bruce Barket, said his client had a running disagreement with regulators. McCrudden was "a frustrated litigant," Barket said, who had been tried and acquitted previously on criminal securities charges.

Under the diversion program, Caffarone told the court, McCrudden was counseled on not making threats.

After McCrudden's arraignment Friday on charges that he made threats against government officials, relatives said he's part of a big family that grew up in Kings Park.

McCrudden, they said, organizes family get-togethers and is the glue that helps keeps them together. "Vincent is the most giving and kindhearted," said sister Mary Eisenstein.

He attended St. Joseph's and then St. Anthony's High School in South Huntington. Although McCrudden didn't graduate from the University of Rhode Island - he attended from 1979 to 1983 - he's been a donor to the school's athletics program, giving about $10,000 or more, a school spokesman said. He said McCrudden played soccer there for about three years.With Olivia Winslow