Martoma is serving a 9 year prison sentence.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: Former SAC Capitol Advisors portfolio manager Mathew Martoma, who is serving 9 years behind bars after taking part in one of the most notorious insider trading rackets in history, has decided to appeal his guilty verdict after two other insider trading convictions were dismissed recently.
In new court papers filed Tuesday, Martoma claims that a recent appeals court decision narrowing the definition of insider trading “at the very least … demands a new trial,” reported the New York Post.
Dr. Sidney Gilman had previously admitted to giving Martoma secret drug test data but “openly conceded on the stand that he neither sought nor received any financial benefit for disclosing the only inside information that matters,” Martoma’s attorneys attested in papers filed on Tuesday.
Martoma’s legal team also pointedly brought of the issue of racial bias since the only Indian origin individual in the jury pool was ousted by prosecutors. Martoma is an Indian American.
In December, a three-judge tribunal overturned the convictions of former hedge fund managers Todd Newman and Anthony Chaisson because prosecutors failed to prove that the individual who tipped them off received any personal financial “benefit” in exchange for divulging inside information.
Martoma, 39, is the eighth former employee of SAC to be convicted of insider trading. USA Today reported he surreptitiously traded non-public information about tests on an experimental Alzheimer’s disease drug being developed by pharmaceutical corporations Elan and Wyeth, then utilized the test-results to “trigger a massive SAC Capital sell-off that generated $276 million in profits” while circumventing any losses. Martoma left SAC in 2010 and was arrested the following year at his Boca Raton home.
Aside from spending the last six months in prison, Martoma was ordered to pay $9.3 million in damages, which was the size of his bonus the year he transgressed insider trading laws.