Less than five weeks after the insider trading conviction of Raj Rajaratnam, prosecutors in New York, again using wiretapped telephone conversations, obtained a second significant conviction for insider trading, this time against Zvi Goffer and two other Wall Street professionals, who were found guilty on Monday of conspiracy and securities fraud charges.
Prosecutors stated that Mr. Goffer, who formerly worked at with the Schottenfeld Group LLC (part of Raj Rajaratnam’s Galleon Group), his brother, defendant Emanuel Goffer, and a third defendant, Michael Kimelman, conspired with attorneys Arthur Cutillo and Brien Santarlas, (formerly of the Ropes & Gray law firm) and others. Zvi Goffer and others paid the attorneys for inside information regarding mergers and acquisitions of public companies represented by the law firm. Media reports stated that Zvi Goffer was nicknamed "Octopussy" due to the number of connections he had. Like the Rajaratnam trial, the evidence in the four-week Goffer trial included numerous recordings of wiretapped phone calls, this time between Mr. Goffer and co-conspirators (many of whom pled guilty).
Each conspiracy conviction carries a maximum penalty of five years, while each securities fraud charge carries a maximum of twenty years. Zvi Goffer is scheduled to be sentenced on September 21, 2011, while sentencing for his co-defendants is scheduled for October 7, 2011.
