Back in June, the lawyer for Winifred Jiau, expert network empress and accused insider trader, made a simple plea: “Put an end to this misguided prosecution,” Joanna Hendon said. “Send Ms. Jiau back to California, and to her dog.”
While the request might’ve played well with golden retriever lovers, the presiding judge didn’t care. He dragged things out another month, finding Jiau guilty over the summer and later on denying a request for acquittal or a new trial. Was Winifred the person you wanted to work with if you held an elastic view of securities laws and most certainly guilty of insider trading? Unquestionably: yes. Was she an individual who commanded sympathy, leniency or to whom you’d want to throw a bone? Those who benefited from her tips would be the first to tell you hell no.
In fact, she was bossy, she would cancel meetings at the last second, she would demand $300 gift certificates to the Cheesecake factory in one breath and a dozen Thanksgiving lobsters in the next, she would meet you for a pass off of material non-public information and tell you the shellfish you sent were Maine lobsters and she’d specifically request South African lobsters (even though she hadn’t) and then spit in your face and walk away and yes, sometimes you’d sit at your desk after she’d reamed you out over the phone for not giving her “the sugar” and fantasize about various ways you could kill her and make it look like an accident but having said all that: there’s a dog waiting for this lady and judge? She knows people who can make certain that these will be the first words you hear when you wake up and the last one’s you hear before you go to bed, for the rest of your life: Continue reading »
Winifred Jiau, a former consultant with expert networking firm Primary Global Research LLC, lost a post-trial bid to overturn her convictions on charges related to insider-trading. U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff denied Jiau’s motion for an acquittal or a new trial in federal court in Manhattan, where she was convicted June 20 of conspiracy and securities fraud. The jury found her guilty of passing information regarding earnings and other matters on Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) and Marvell Technology Group Ltd. to hedge fund managers Noah Freeman, a former SAC Capital Advisors LP portfolio manager, and Samir Barai, founder of New York-based Barai Capital Management LP. Jiau, of Fremont, California, faces as long as 25 years in prison when she is sentenced by Rakoff. [Bloomberg, earlier]
Yesterday afternoon, former Primary Global consultant Walter Shimoon pleaded guilty to passing inside information to his hedge fund clients. According to court documents, Kingdom Ridge Capital made about $560,000 in October 2009, based on Shimoon’s tips about Apple. We now know that the expert network analysts’ material non-public information was about the iPhone 4 and the iPad, though at the time, in the case of the latter product, Shimoon struggled to explain what he was talking about. Here’s how he described the iPad, which had not yet been unveiled, to Kingdom: Continue reading »
As we have learned from former SAC trader Noah Freeman’s extensive testimony in the government’s insider trading case du jour, expert network analyst Winifred Jiau had a tendency to act irrational, demanding and sometimes plain bitchy. Whether her behavior stemmed from a power trip associated with realizing she was the person anyone who was anyone in the insider trading space wanted to work or she was simply born that way is unclear but regardless, while it may have annoyed some clients, it didn’t stop anyone from buying what she was selling, i.e. inside information that was “precise to the decimal.” Freeman, for example, has go so far as to praise her tips as best in class while sharing that he fantasized about doing her bodily harm, such as when she would make what he felt to be absurd requests like two (2) iPhones, gift cards to clothing stores, the Cheesecake factory and a dozen Thanksgiving lobsters. Apparently, though, the stuff wasn’t for Jiau. She just needed it to land another member of her “club.” Continue reading »
One major focus of the Feds’ insider trading cases du jour is the use of expert networks by hedge fund managers, and whether or not the information is “too” good (the government is of the opinion that it is). While a whole bunch of employees with various expert networks have been charged, one stands out as the leader in the field- Primary Global’s Winifred Jiau, who is the woman you wanted to get in good with if you were looking to (allegedly) trade on material non-public information. Jiau seems to have worked with everyone who’s been accused of insider trading (Donald Longueuil, Noah Freeman, the Goffer brothers and so on and so forth) and presumably had a waiting list for her tips. According to Assistant US Attorney David Leibowitz’s opening statement yesterday, Jiau’s information was “precise to the decimal point,” and even created her own code to discuss such info so that no one would ever catch on to what she and her clients were discussing, should their conversations be tapped.
Leibowitz said Jiau spoke in code, demanding payments for the information, which she called “sugar,” and describing her sources as “cooks” and referring to tips as “recipes.”
For example, if you’d been reading over Jiau’s shoulder on June 3, 2008, you would’ve seen the following IM and while perhaps felt a pang of hunger, been none the wiser: Continue reading »
All WW spokeswomen– lookin’ at you, Jennifer Hudson– are suspects. Continue reading »
Last week we reported that hedge fund STG Capital had abruptly closed its doors, though the reason was unclear. Today Reuters’ Matthew Goldstein and Emily Chasan have a bit more color: Continue reading »
