"Ex-SAC Capital Trader Steinberg sentenced to 3½ years" New York Times Syndicate May 17, 2014
They are a racket all right.
NEW YORK — A federal judge on Friday sentenced Michael Steinberg, one of the longest-tenured traders to work for the billionaire investor Steven A. Cohen, to 3½ years in prison for his conviction on insider trading charges last year.
US District Judge Richard J. Sullivan in Manhattan agreed to allow Steinberg, 41, to remain free pending the outcome of an appeal, expected to be filed soon.
Prosecutors had asked the judge to impose a prison sentence of 5 years, 3 months to as much as 6½ years. Lawyers for Steinberg, who is married and has two children, had asked Sullivan to sentence him to 2 years.
Sullivan called Steinberg a “good man” and told him, “This doesn’t define you.” But he said the sentence was warranted to send a message to others and because his actions involved “systematic trades over months and years.”
Must be why they discreetly arrested him. Makes you sick.
In December, a federal jury in Manhattan convicted Steinberg, once a top portfolio manager, of generating $1.8 million in illegal trading profits for Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors, now called Point72 Asset Management.
Steinberg is one of eight people who once worked for Cohen to either plead guilty to or be convicted of insider trading. SAC itself pleaded guilty to insider trading charges and paid a $1.2 billion penalty to federal prosecutors.
--more--"
Related:
SEC $ettles With SAC
SAC Capital agrees to plead guilty in insider trading case
SAC Still Operating
It was determined to be good for the housing market.
UPDATE:
"Criminal charges against SAC said to be coming soon" by Jia Lynn Yang and Sari Horwitz | Washington Post July 25, 2013
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department will file criminal charges as soon as Thursday against SAC Capital Advisors, once one of the country’s most successful hedge funds, following a multiyear investigation into insider trading, according to people familiar with the matter.
Current and former employees have already been tied to the federal investigation, but prosecutors are getting ready to unveil a criminal case against the legendary firm itself, once exalted on Wall Street for its whopping average annual returns of 25 percent.
Justice officials are also leaving the door open to prosecuting SAC’s famous founder, Steven Cohen, and others, the people said, on condition of anonymity since the investigation is ongoing.
A door that would soon be closed.
In a massive insider-trading investigation that has ensnared several other firms, SAC is the most ambitious target yet. The hedge fund and its billionaire founder are symbols of Wall Street at its most successful — and most excessive.
And criminal. Don't leave that out, propaganda pre$$.
SAC, based in Stamford, Conn., charges its clients more than the industry standard because its returns are so high, especially when markets are down.
Looks like another Bernie Madoff scheme!
Cohen, whose initials form the name of his company, is known for running a cutthroat office.
Good businessman and role model (and a f***ing Jew).
Traders are expected to bring massive profits regularly to the firm, or be asked to leave. Cohen has been known to do anything to gain an edge; he has hired in-house psychiatrists to hone his employees’ ability to trade while under stress.
Wow. Exhibit A when it comes to greedy money addicts.
He is also known for his lavish spending. This year, he paid $155 million for the Picasso painting ‘‘Le Rêve,’’ the most on record for a US collector. He also bought an oceanfront property in East Hampton, N.Y., for $60 million.
That helped the housing market.
Criminal charges against the firm could mark the end of SAC, which has seen investors pull out money since legal troubles began to bubble up a few years ago.
Nope. They $till up and running.
Jonathan Gasthalter, a spokesman for SAC, declined to comment.
The insider-trading investigation, led by Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara, is by far its biggest since the late 1980s, when prosecutors went after junk-bond trader Michael Milken.
While the government has pursued far-reaching investigations of insider trading at hedge funds, there have yet to be any major criminal prosecutions of financial firms at the heart of the 2008 crisis, many of which received massive taxpayer bailouts. Nonetheless, the insider-trading investigation has netted high-profile people.
Yeah, in spite of government subservience to their money masters and all that stolen loot, just look at the public relations campaign here. Government is so great going after these crooks after enabling them for so long while advancing their agenda and interests.
I love my $tink-a$$ U.S. government!
In 2011, Raj Rajaratnam, cofounder of another hedge fund, Galleon Group, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for his role at the center of an extensive network of consultants, analysts, and traders passing nonpublic information between them — and profiting from it.
See: The IBM Insider
That investigation, marked by its reliance on wiretaps, has slowly reached the doorstep of SAC.
Oh, yeah, the spying capabilities and data collection efforts all these years means government can not not know what has been going on. But rather than worry about financial thievery and crimes that destroyed the economy, they would rather spy on me and you.
Oh, right, government is part of that cla$$ and is working for them.
Former SAC employees Mathew Martoma and Jon Horvath were charged last year with insider trading.
In March, the company agreed to a $616 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the biggest ever for insider trading.
They made it back in less than a month.
Also that month, another fund manager at SEC, Michael Steinberg, was indicted by a federal grand jury on counts of conspiracy and securities fraud.
The big question left is whether Cohen will face criminal charges....
He did not.
--more--"
"Former SAC trader is found guilty of insider trading" by Alexandra Stevenson and Matthew Goldstein | New York Times February 07, 2014
NEW YORK — A federal jury in Manhattan on Thursday convicted Mathew Martoma on insider trading charges in what may be the last criminal case to emerge from a decade-long investigation of Steven A. Cohen and his SAC Capital Advisors hedge fund.
The jury of seven women and five men found Martoma, a former SAC portfolio manager, guilty of seeking out confidential information related to a clinical trial for an experimental Alzheimer’s drug. The inside information — provided mainly by a doctor familiar with the results of the clinical trial who was the government’s main witness — helped SAC avoid losses and generate profits totaling $275 million in July 2008.
He had to do it; otherwise, he would have been asked to leave.
The 39-year-old former trader, who is married and has three young children, is expected to face a prison sentence of seven to 10 years.
The guilty verdict is the latest setback for Cohen and his 22-year-old firm, which itself pleaded guilty to securities fraud charges in November and agreed to pay a $1.2 billion penalty.
Awww, poor Cohen!
Un-f***ing-believable.
What gross $hit.
Cohen, 57, has not been charged with any criminal wrongdoing. The verdict comes as Cohen is moving forward with plans to reconfigure his firm into a family office that will mainly manage his $9 billion in personal wealth....
Need I even type it?
--more--"
