Former Consultant Karl Motey Sentenced in Manhattan Federal Court for Insider Trading
| U.S. Attorney’s Office February 04, 2013 |
Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that Karl Motey was sentenced today to time served followed by one year of supervised release for his participation in an insider trading scheme in which Motey provided material, non-public information (“inside information”) about publicly traded companies to a number of individuals, including Doug Whitman, the president and founder of Whitman Capital. Motey pled guilty in December 2010 to securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud pursuant to a cooperation agreement with the Government. He was sentenced in Manhattan federal court by U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff.
According to the Information, statements made during Motey’s guilty plea proceeding, Motey’s testimony during the criminal trial of Doug Whitman, and the government’s sentencing submission in Motey’s case:
From approximately late 2007 through early 2009, Motey, through his consulting company, the Coda Group, provided Inside Information relating to Marvell Technology Group (“Marvell”) and Marvell’s customers to co-conspirators including Whitman, who regularly purchased and sold securities. MOTEY provided this inside information with the understanding that his tippees would use the information to trade securities. In exchange for providing this information, the Coda Group received quarterly consulting fees from its clients, including soft-dollar payments from Whitman Capital.
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Motey, 48, was ordered to pay $40,000 in forfeiture and a $200 special assessment fee.
Mr. Bharara praised the investigative work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He also thanked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
This case was brought in coordination with President Barack Obama’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force, on which Mr. Bharara serves as a co-chair of the Securities and Commodities Fraud Working Group. President Obama established the interagency Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force to wage an aggressive, coordinated, and proactive effort to investigate and prosecute financial crimes. The task force includes representatives from a broad range of federal agencies, regulatory authorities, inspectors general, and state and local law enforcement who, working together, bring to bear a powerful array of criminal and civil enforcement resources. The task force is working to improve efforts across the federal executive branch and, with state and local partners, to investigate and prosecute significant financial crimes, ensure just and effective punishment for those who perpetrate financial crimes, combat discrimination in the lending and financial markets, and recover proceeds for victims of financial crimes.
The case is being handled by the Office’s Securities and Commodities Fraud Task Force. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jillian B. Berman, Christopher L. LaVigne, and Antonia M. Apps are in charge of the prosecution.