Fugitive, brokerage in $23 mln SEC fraud accord

* FTC Capital, onetime chairman settle fraud lawsuit

* SEC alleged defendants defrauded Venezuela's PDVSA

* Chairman was indicted last October, remains a fugitive

By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK, Aug 26 (Reuters) - A New York brokerage firm and its fugitive chairman have agreed to pay roughly $23 million to settle regulatory charges accusing them of defrauding Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA through unauthorized trading.

FTC Capital Markets Inc and its chairman, Venezuelan businessman Guillermo Clamens, each agreed to disgorge $20.93 million and pay $1.58 million of interest to resolve the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission case, according to documents filed Thursday in Manhattan federal court.

In addition, FTC agreed to pay a $650,000 civil fine, while Clamens and co-defendant Nazly Cucunuba Lopez, a onetime FTC operations manager, agreed to pay $130,000 fines, the judgments show. None of the defendants admitted wrongdoing.

A U.S. grand jury last October indicted Clamens on charges of defrauding the Citgo Petroleum unit of PDVSA.

Lopez had pleaded guilty four days earlier to conspiracy and securities charges related to the alleged scheme. [ID:nN20457755]

Clamens at the time had been declared a fugitive by authorities and did not return to the United States to face the criminal charges. He remains at large, a representative of the U.S. Attorney's office in New York said on Thursday.

Lawyers for FTC, Clamens and Lopez did not immediately return calls seeking comment on Thursday.

Clamens and Lopez were accused by the SEC of using FTC to engage in tens of millions of dollars in unauthorized trades through PDVSA and Citgo accounts.

The SEC alleged that the defendants conducted the fraud in part to conceal their prior sale of bogus notes to a Venezuelan bank through an FTC affiliate.

When the notes supposedly came due, Clamens took $50 million from the accounts to fund the redemption, the SEC alleged.

The SEC case is SEC v. FTC Capital Markets Inc, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 09-04755. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York. Editing by Robert MacMillan)