Wall Street analyst sentenced for insider trading
Summary of story from Bloomberg, July 21, 2011
Danielle Chiesi, the former New Castle Funds LLC analyst, has been sentenced to two and a half years in prison for insider trading.
The 45 year-old pleaded guilty to three counts of conspiracy (see WVoN story).
US District Court Judge Richard Holwell found her actions ‘deplorable’ and imposed a $25, ooo fine and 250 hours of community service on top of the prison time.
“The message to Wall Street needs to be loud and clear. If you trade on inside information, you will be caught,” Judge Holwell said. “And if convicted, you will be sentenced to a substantial term in prison.”
Ms Chiesi is also to undergo treatment for substance abuse and therapy “to allow her to readjust a moral compass which obviously fell by the wayside”.
Her lawyer, Alan Kaufman, argued for a lighter sentence, citing her emotional and financial dependency on her boss Mark Kurland, who was sentenced last year.
Assistant attorney Andrew Michaelson said that Chiesi ‘seriously corrupted the markets’ by sharing information with fund managers who controlled billions of dollars.
He disputed any depiction of Chiesi as a victim of more powerful men.
“She forced her relationships, she committed the criminal conduct and she shared that information with others,” he said. “Chiesi played a central, starring role in her crimes.”
She had received information from Hector Ruiz, formerly chairman of AMD, and Robert Moffatt, with whom she had ‘an intimate relationship’.
During a telephone conversation Ms Chiesi was heard worrying about getting caught, saying: ’I'll be like Martha f—ing Stewart.’
Ms Chiesi will be serving her sentence at the same prison that Martha Stewart served a five-month sentence after she was convicted of lying to federal authorities about her stock sales.
