Labor & Employment Law

Seven Wall Street Professionals and Attorneys are indicted for Insider Trading

By Dobin & Jenks

The Department of Justice and the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced that seven Wall Street professionals and attorneys were indicted on Friday for insider trading at hedge funds and stock trading firms. The defendants included Zvi Goffer, Arthur Cutillo, Jason Goldfarb, Craig Drimal, Emanuel Goffer, Michael Kimelman and David Plate. The recent indictment includes conspiracy to commit securities fraud and three additional counts of securities fraud.

According to published reports, the defendants allegedly operated an insider trading network, where one member obtained information to pass along to others and traded on nonpublic information, about public company acquisitions and mergers. The conspirators tried to hide their scheme by using prepaid phones to pass along information.

It is believed that, the insider trader scheme earned the co-conspirators approximately, $11 million for themselves and their firms. The defendants will have a day of reckoning before United States District Judge Richard J Sullivan, on February 2, 2010, at their scheduled arraignment.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Securities exchange commission are to be greatly praised with their role in helping to uncover this fraud, According to United States Attorney Preet Bharara. Assistant United States Attorneys Andrew Fish, Reed M. Brodsky and Marc Litt are in charge of prosecuting the case.

It is important to note that the defendants face a maximum of 170 years in prison collectively as a group. Was the risk of this jail time worth the reward? If you ask a few famous fraudsters, Bernie Madoff and Scott Rothstein, the answer is a resounding NO.

Click here to read more from the Department of Justice on the detailed counts, charges and penalties

Full post as published by The Law Planet Blog on January 23, 2010 (boomark / email).