Galleon

Remember David Slaine? For those who need a refresher, he is the former Morgan Stanley managing director and ex-Galleon trader who began working as an FBI informant in 2007 and who was outed for doing so by the Wall Street Journal in January 2010. At the time, we learned a few notable things about Slaine, some of them germane to his role in helping the government go after people trading on material non-public information, others special in their own way, like:

1. He takes french fries, and perhaps all snacks, very seriously.

In 1993, Slaine triggered a fist-fight with a colleague on the trading floor after needling him because he wouldn’t share his french fries. Others broke up the fight.

2. He doesn’t wait for people to towel off and get dressed before knocking their teeth out.

One morning early in 2001, before trading began, Gary Rosenbach, then was the No. 2 executive under Mr. Rajaratnam, and Slaine were in a steam room together after exercising at an Equinox Fitness Club. Mr. Rosenbach was pressuring Mr. Slaine to improve his performance. As Mr. Rosenbach lay on his back on a bench, Mr. Slaine punched him, giving him a black eye and ending their friendship.

3. Humans aren’t the only ones often asked “you want a piece of me?”

He once smashed a computer keyboard in a fit of rage, says a person familiar with the incident.

4. While working on Wall Street, he eschewed the traditional channels of employee recruitment (Wharton, etc), preferring instead to pick up fresh analysts at the club.

While at Morgan Stanley, he met [Craig] Drimal, then a nightclub bouncer at the Vertical Club in Manhattan. The two quickly formed a friendship based on a shared passion for weight lifting and their mutual ability to bench-press 400 pounds…Shortly after arriving at Galleon, Mr. Slaine persuaded Galleon officials to give a position to Mr. Drimal, who then was working as a bouncer at the Roxy nightclub in Manhattan.

5. Being a person with whom he “formed a friendship based on a shared passion for weight lifting and [a] mutual ability to bench-press 400 pounds,” possibly the greatest line written about anyone who’s ever worked on Wall Street and which which cannot be said enough, means little in the long run if he knows you’ve been playing it fast and loose with securites laws.

In July 2007, the FBI showed up at Mr. Slaine’s door on W. 57th Street in Manhattan and confronted him. Mr. Slaine agreed to help the government. At the time, federal prosecutors in Manhattan were trying to make headway on another investigation that eventually led to the charges involving Galleon. They asked Mr. Slaine who he knew that might be participating in insider trading. Mr. Slaine’s answer: his friend Mr. Drimal, according to people familiar with the matter. In September 2007, Mr. Slaine—identified in the complaint as CS-1—tried out his body wire for the first time, meeting Mr. Drimal in New York. During the meeting, Mr. Drimal gave Mr. Slaine a piece of paper with four stock symbols, according to the complaint. He told Mr. Slaine the four companies were all acquisition targets. At the meeting’s end, Mr. Drimal told Mr. Slaine to destroy the list. He warned him to “be careful” in trading the securities because no news of the takeovers had surfaced publicly…After the meeting, Mr. Slaine went to a nearby hotel where an FBI agent was waiting, says a person familiar with the matter. The pair went to a room where Mr. Slaine removed the wire.

Anyway, Bloomberg recently checked in to see what Slaine’s been up to these last couple years and other than his “experience” with the FBI being “tremendously traumatic,” he seems to be doing pretty well. Read more »

On October 13, Judge Richard Holwell will pass down a sentence for convicted insider trader, Raj Rajaratnam. If the prosecution has its way, the Galleon Group founder will go away for twenty-four years. Obviously, the defense would prefer a little less time and in August, following Raj’s brother’s unsuccessful appeal for people to send character letters to the judge asking for lenience, turned to Plan B: breaking the news that Raj is suffering from a disease the likes of which you can’t even imagine, noting in a court filing that he will die from “unique constellation of ailments ravaging his body” if given anything even approaching twenty years. This, clearly, was well-played. Read more »

You might think – particularly if you’re a certain hedge fund manager counting down the days to a September sentencing – that Rajat Gupta did pretty well by not being prosecuted criminally (yet!) for allegedly passing inside information to Galleon. All he’s got so far is an SEC administrative action looking for “disgorgement of ill-gotten gains” and other civil penalties – which, not great, but better than jail.

But then again, not great – and Gupta ran McKinsey so you’d better believe he’s looking for ways to optimize the process. First up: get out of SEC administrative “court” and into a real court.
Read more »

Earlier today, US prosecutors rested their case against former Galleon employee Zvi Goffer, who like his old boss Raj, has been accused of insider trading. Here’s what Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Tarlowe had to tell the jury:

Tarlowe urged the jury to consider why the three men used prepaid phones that they subsequently destroyed, why Zvi Goffer spoke on recordings about creating what he called a “divergence” that would conceal the reason for trades, why Zvi Goffer referred on recordings to “our guy,” and why he and Kimelman spoke so often about the legal documents that prosecutors say were used in deals that Ropes & Gray worked on. “Think about why they were doing things like that,” Tarlowe told jurors. “The defendants are guilty as charged.”

And here’s what Goffer’s lawyer had to say about all that: Read more »

He requested their help last week and even included some links on the proper formatting to use when drafting missives in an attempt to convince a judge to be lenient in sentencing.

From: Rengan Rajaratnam
Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2011

Dear Friends,

I want to thank you for your support. Your calls, emails, texts, and inquiries are constant reminders that through this dark, tragic time, Raj and the family are not alone.

As we prepare for the appeals process, we need your help and I am I only sending this letter to a handful of people. The sentencing phase is coming up relatively quickly and the federal guidelines are calling for 15 to 19 years in jail. The guidelines are harder and less flexible than many prison sentences for violent and predatory offenders. This is simply unfair, and we are praying for leniency from the judge while we prepare for the appeal.

In the meantime, on behalf of Raj and the family, I would like to enlist your support one last time. Positive character letters from family, friends, and colleagues that know Raj well can play a pivotal role in helping persuade the Hon. Judge Holwell to be fair, and lenient during Raj’s sentencing.

Read more »

If you’ve been closely following the government’s Insider Trading Fest(ivus) 2010/2011 you know that one thing that’s emerged is a detailed guide to how one should go about destroyed evidence of securities violations that a jury would not look upon kindly. Garrett Bauer spoke to us at length about the benefits of washing versus burning dirty money while Donald Longueuil, the foremost expert on the matter, provided a step-by-step guide to getting rid of incriminating USB drives (you’ll need: two pairs of pliers, four plastic baggies, one North Face fleece). Yesterday, an (alleged) accomplice of (accused) insider trader/former Galleon employee Zvi Goffer added a chapter on getting rid of a cell phone that could cause trouble. Read more »

Empirical Creative was paid about $300,000, the people familiar with the situation say, for services that included a mock trial, during which his lawyers employed two main defense themes: that the information prosecutors said involved illegal inside tips was already public, and that the government’s witnesses weren’t credible. During the mock trial, the consultants discovered, the jurors most receptive to those themes were those without advanced-education degrees or financial sophistication and with relatively low- to middle-income jobs. Mock jurors who were members of ethnic minority groups also were more sympathetic to Mr. Rajaratnam, who was born in Sri Lanka, their research found, according to the people familiar with the situation. The real jury reflected those findings in many respects. [WSJ]

Gorman

So you’ve started a hedge fund and have decided the best way to maximize returns for investors is by trading on material non-public information. With the government’s crackdown on insider trading, odds are you will ultimately get caught and, if you’ve suffered blunt trauma to the head, will decide to take your chances at a trial by jury rather than settle. If you’d like some level of assurance you’ll have better odds than Raj Rajaratnam, who was deemed guilty by Day 2 of deliberations (despite the jury taking 12 days to spit it out), consider these tips from one of the women, Leila Gonzalez Gorman, who helped sent him away. Read more »

Yes he does! “Get the fuck out of here. That’s what I’ve got for CNBC.” Read more »

“We started out with 37 stocks, we’re down to 14,” defense attorney John Dowd said today after his client was found guilty on 9 counts of insider trading and 5 counts of conspiracy. “The score is 23 to 14 for the defense. We’ll see you in the Second Circuit.” Read more »

Earlier this morning, Raj Rajaratnam was found guilty on 9 counts on insider trading and 5 counts of conspiracy. He is probably not in the best of moods right now, as he may be going away to a place that doesn’t give you extra mayo on the side of your tuna sandwich, for nearly 20 years. But there is some good news, which is that someone will most likely make a movie about this whole thing. To give producers a jump start, we will start the casting process now. Read more »