Valvani was charged with making illegally $25 million from insider trading.
AB Wire
An Indian American hedge fund manager at Visium Asset Management, Sanjay Valvani, 44, who was charged with insider trading last week, allegedly committed suicide in his apartment in Brooklyn, New York, on Monday.
A spokesperson for the New York Police Department said the death is being investigated as a suicide. According to the New York Police Department, a 911 call was placed on Monday evening after Valvani’s wife found him in their apartment with his neck slashed and recovered a knife and a suicide note, reported Forbes.
Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, last week criminally charged Valvani of orchestrating a six-year insider trading scheme while working at healthcare focused New York hedge fund Visium Asset Management, which had been led by Jacob Gottlieb.
Valvani specifically made about $25 million by trading on non-public information about pending drug approvals from the Food and Drug Administration, federal prosecutors claimed. Valvani had pleaded not guilty and was able to return home after posting bail.
Gottlieb has shut down his hedge fund operation, which at one point managed some $8 billion, after selling one of his funds to AllianceBernstein, saying it was not possible to keep Visium going in light of the insider trading charges that have been filed against three individuals associated with the firm, reported Forbes.
Fox News reported Valvani, who was a partner and money manager at Visium Asset Management, was charged last Wednesday with five counts including securities fraud and conspiracy.
His attorneys, Barry Berke and Eric Tirschwell, called his death a “horrible tragedy that is difficult to comprehend.”
Valvani paid a former Food and Drug Administration employee to pass along tips about pending drug approvals from an ex-colleague, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said. He also accused Valvani of sending some of those tips to portfolio manager Christopher Plaford, who made his own illegal trades.
Bharara did not immediately comment on the suicide report.
In response to the accusations, Berke called his client “an innocent man whose investment decisions were always based on rigorous and entirely appropriate research and analysis.”
Visium announced Friday it would sell one of its funds and shut the rest. The firm had managed $8 billion at its peak, Bloomberg reported, but uneasy clients pulled out billions of dollars after details of the federal investigation went public earlier this year.
“We mourn the tragic loss of Sanjay, a devoted father, husband and friend. Our thoughts are with his family during this difficult time,” Visium’s founder Jacob Gottlieb responded.