Guilty Plea for Couple in Insider Trading Case

A former Morgan Stanley finance vice president and her husband, a former hedge fund analyst at ING Investment Management, pleaded guilty yesterday to conspiracy and insider trading as part of a federal crackdown.

The couple, Jennifer Wang and Ruben Chen of Englishtown, N.J., each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and three counts of insider trading in Federal District Court in Manhattan.

“I feel deeply sorry for my conduct,” Ms. Wang said in court. “I understood what I did was wrong.”

Prosecutors this year have stepped up efforts to combat insider trading. In May, a former Morgan Stanley compliance officer, Randi Collotta, and her husband pleaded guilty to insider-trading charges in an unrelated case. And last month, a former Goldman Sachs associate pleaded guilty to making more than $6.7 million through insider trades.

Ms. Wang, 31, and Mr. Chen, 34, were arrested on May 10 for trading in the securities of Town and Country Trust, Glenborough Realty Trust and Genesis HealthCare, based on information that Ms. Wang had learned from Morgan Stanley. They earned more than $600,000 from December 2005 to March 2007, prosecutors said.

According to the complaint, Morgan Stanley was advising its subsidiary, Morgan Stanley Real Estate, on the acquisition of Town and Country and Glenborough. Ms. Wang learned about the firm’s failure to acquire Town and Country and the successful purchase of Glenborough before the news became public.

Representatives of ING Groep and Morgan Stanley have said their firms had cooperated with federal investigators.


source: Bloomberg News via The New York Times