U.S. judge tosses former SAC Capital trader’s insider trading guilty plea
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A federal judge in Manhattan on Friday threw out the 2013 insider trading guilty plea of a former trader at SAC Capital Advisors LP, the hedge fund once run by billionaire Steven A. Cohen, saying recent changes in the law meant there were not enough facts to support the plea.
The trader, Richard Choo-Beng Lee, 62, had been a major cooperating witness and one of the first to plead guilty in former Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s insider trading crackdown, which began in 2009 and led to more than 80 guilty pleas and convictions.