Todd Newman and Anthony Chiasson were convicted in federal court in Manhattan after a five-week trial. Newman worked for Diamondback Capital Management and had been accused of making about $2.8 million from illegal tips. Chiasson of Level Global Investors is supposed to have earned about $50 million illegally by trading on a tip received about Dell stock in 2008.
Both denied insider trading, and their lawyers argued that they believed they were basing trades on legitimate research. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said investment fund managers were being made to answer for their extraordinarily bad risk-reward analysis about what is right and what is wrong.
Defence lawyers said they would appeal, but in our experience lawyers are never appealing at all. When the men were arrested in January, the government said the Dell case was the largest insider trading transaction ever prosecuted in Manhattan.