Man who ate napkins to conceal insider trading pleads guilty.
By Jonathan Stempel
(Reuters) - A Brooklyn, New York mortgage broker, who would scribble
secret stock tips on napkins and pass them to an accomplice in Grand
Central station before eating them, pleaded guilty to insider trading on
Friday, federal prosecutors said.
Frank Tamayo, 41, was the middleman in what prosecutors
called a three-man scheme that generated $5.6 million in illegal profits
over five years, based on tips about a dozen transactions being
negotiated by a prestigious New York law firm.
Tamayo, who had been cooperating with authorities, pleaded guilty to
securities fraud, tender offer fraud, and conspiracy charges in the
federal court in Trenton, New Jersey, according to U.S. Attorney Paul
Fishman in New Jersey.The defendant also agreed to forfeit more than $1 million, the contents of two brokerage accounts, and a 2008 Audi Q7. He faces up to 20 years in prison on the fraud counts.
Matthew Beck, a lawyer for Tamayo, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed related civil charges.
Authorities had in March accused Steven Metro, a managing clerk at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, of passing tips about the law firm's clients through Tamayo to Morgan Stanley stockbroker Vladimir Eydelman, who would then trade for himself, his family, customers and Tamayo.
Prosecutors said the scheme lacked sophisticated computerized techniques or cover-ups now often associated with insider trading.
Rather, they said Tamayo would typically meet Metro, a friend and former law school classmate, at Manhattan bars or coffee shops, and write the ticker symbols of stocks to be bought on napkins or Post-It notes.
Tamayo would then meet Eydelman near the main clock in Grand Central, show him a symbol and, once satisfied Eydelman had memorized it, "chew the paper or napkin to destroy it," prosecutors said.
The scheme allegedly began in February 2009 when Metro told Tamayo that Liberty Media Corp might invest in Sirius XM Radio, then on the verge of bankruptcy.
Tamayo then allegedly told Eydelman to add to his existing
Sirius stake, saying a "source" had alerted him to the bailout.
Authorities said Tamayo this year began recording
conversations with the other defendants, including on Feb. 20 when
Eydelman gave him a cigar box containing $7,000 meant to help Metro buy
and renovate a new home.
"Take these cigars, put it to good use," Eydelman told Tamayo, court papers show.
Metro made just $168,000 from the scheme, prosecutors said.
The case echoed a 2011 prosecution in New Jersey, where a
lawyer admitted to passing merger tips to a trader, helped by a
middleman who was also a mortgage broker, and also eventually cooperated
with authorities.
Lawyers for Eydelman, of Colts Neck, New Jersey, and Metro, of
Katonah, New York, did not immediately respond on Friday to requests for
comment. Eydelman and Metro have both been fired from their respective
employers.
The case is U.S. v. Tamayo, U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey.