A retired Croatian underwear seamstress, who allowed her nephew, a former Goldman Sachs analyst, to make illegal insider trades through her brokerage account, has won the reversal of a $5.7 million penalty she owed to the Securities and Exchange Commission because she sent her response to the allegations to the wrong address.

Back in 2005, the seamstress, Sonja Anticevic, was implicated in an insider trading ring that involved two Goldman employees, a New Jersey mailman, a former Merrill Lynch analyst and a printing plant worker in Wisconsin.

At the time, prosecutors accused the Goldman employees, David Pajcin and Eugene Plotkin, (also a professional ballroom dancer) of trading trading stocks based on, among other things, prepublication copies of BusinessWeek magazine’s “Inside Wall Street” column and information leaked from a grand-jury probe involving Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Most of the others implicated in the scheme have pled guilty and are serving jail time. Pajcin, Anticevic’s nephew, pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors but has apparently fled the country. In November, the SEC levied a $5.7 million penalty on Anticevic for helping her nephew hide his trades and for ignoring the SEC’s charges by failing to show up in court.

Anticevic later hired a Croatian lawyer, who said his client responded to the court in an Aug. 31, 2009 letter but sent it to the wrong address.

That mistake was apparently enough to get the judge overseeing the case to reverse the penalty. On late Friday, U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood threw out the default judgement against Anticevic citing her status as a foreigner who is “likely not familiar with the U.S. legal system and court procedures.”

The judge also noted that Anticevic, believed to be in her late-60s, “did not know and had no reason to know” that her nephew was engaging in illegal trading through her brokerage accounts. The judge directed the former seamstress to answer the SEC’s complaint electronically by July 21.

Plotkin pleaded guilty in 2007 and was sentenced to 57 months in prison. Pajcin was sentenced to “time served” in January 2008 and ordered to forfeit $6.7 million in illicit profits.

Jason Smith, the grand juror in the case against Bristol, was sentenced to 33 months in prison, and Stanislav Shpigelman, a former Merrill Lynch analyst who leaked confidential info about pending mergers to the Goldman guys, received a sentence of 37 months in prison in 2007.

Comments (17)

  1. Posted by CoveredLong | May 17, 2010 at 10:59 AM

    So is a Double Down challenge considered a ‘Kentucky Seamstress’?

  2. Posted by Anonymous | May 17, 2010 at 11:10 AM

    Sonja Anticevic, CFA

  3. Posted by Anonymous | May 17, 2010 at 11:16 AM

    Kouwe,

    Every morning I squat over your coffee cup and vigorously scrub my rashy taint with a steel wool brush.

    -Jeff Macke

  4. Posted by Anonymous | May 17, 2010 at 11:21 AM

    That parrot isn’t dead, he’s just pining for the fjords.

  5. Posted by Anonymous | May 17, 2010 at 11:27 AM

    The Druries are looking spectacular today.

  6. Posted by trojan | May 17, 2010 at 11:37 AM

    kimba wood?

    nice.

  7. Posted by Anonymous | May 17, 2010 at 11:44 AM

    You are all perverts. All of you.

    Roman P.

  8. Posted by Anonymous | May 17, 2010 at 11:48 AM

    This confirms how hot Croatian chicks really are.

  9. Posted by Kouwe | May 17, 2010 at 11:55 AM

    Interesting story.

    Compare what Kouwe writes:
    “Jason Smith, the grand juror in the case against Bristol, was sentenced to 33 months in prison, and Stanislav Shpigelman, a former Merrill Lynch analyst who leaked confidential info about pending mergers to the Goldman guys, received a sentence of 37 months in prison in 2007.”

    To what is written on the Dow Jones Newswire (http://tinyurl.com/37r3cg4):
    “Jason Smith, the one-time grand juror, was sentenced to 33 months in prison in December 2006, and Stanislav Shpigelman, the former Merrill Lynch analyst, received a sentence of 37 months in prison in 2007.”

    Are you fucking serious? Those two are materially the same, except for a filler words Kouwe has artfully deleted and inserted. But substantially, it’s still plagiarism.

    Kouwe, you may have been fired from the NYT for plagiarism, but you’re still writing for public consumption – you can’t aggrandise yourself by riding on the hard work of someone else.

    I’ve emailed the author of the Dow Jones piece to let him know about your shameless exploits.

  10. Posted by Kouwe | May 17, 2010 at 11:58 AM

    9 still here – Before anyone interjects, I am fully aware of the purpose of a newswire or a news agency. But I think that Kouwe, given his history and the level of work he puts into his posts, deserves a great deal of scrutiny.

  11. Posted by Anonymous | May 17, 2010 at 12:11 PM

    How are reporting facts plagiarism? For example, @9, “You are a dick.” Someone else could write the exact same thing and I would have no cause to claim plagiarism. Examine your motives.

  12. Posted by Anonymous | May 17, 2010 at 12:19 PM

    Anal_yst, any thoughts on how Kouwe grooms his man purse?

  13. Posted by Seaman Bodine | May 17, 2010 at 12:28 PM

    @9/@10

    twink

  14. Posted by Anonymous | May 17, 2010 at 1:30 PM

    @9/@10 was that kid in class who ran to the teacher for every little thing. universally hated.

  15. Posted by random hater | May 18, 2010 at 3:09 AM

    Quote Reuters: “Anticevic later hired a Croatian lawyer, who said his client responded to the court in an Aug. 31, 2009, letter but sent it to the wrong address”

    Quote Kouwe: “Anticevic later hired a Croatian lawyer, who said his client responded to the court in an Aug. 31, 2009 letter but sent it to the wrong address”

    At least he had the journalistic integrity to remove the extraneous comma from after “2009″.

    Snicker snicker. Blockquote that shit and call it a day, dude.

  16. Posted by stylepoints | May 18, 2010 at 3:21 AM

    @15

    even though he fucked up ap style with the comma kill

  17. Posted by Anonymous | February 7, 2011 at 3:19 AM

    All traders lose money every once in a while. Take the loss and move forward. It is important to stay committed to your plan when things get shaky.
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