Former Consultant Wesley Wang Sentenced in Manhattan Federal Court for Insider Trading

Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that Wesley Wang, a former consultant with Trellus Management, was sentenced today to two years’ probation for his participation in insider trading schemes in which Wang provided material, non-public information (“inside information”) about various publicly traded companies to several individuals, including Doug Whitman, the president and founder of Whitman Capital. Wang pled guilty in July 2012 to two counts of 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 Wang’s guilty plea proceeding, Wang’s testimony during the criminal trial of Doug Whitman, and the government’s sentencing submission in Wang’s case:

From 2005 through 2008, Wang provided Whitman, among others, inside information on Cisco with the understanding that Whitman would use the information to trade securities. In exchange for this inside information, Whitman provided Wang with inside information on other publicly traded companies, including Marvell and Polycom, which Wangin turn provided to others. In addition, from 2002 to 2005, Wang was involved in a separate conspiracy in which he exchanged inside information about various publicly traded companies with other individuals, with the expectation the information would be used to trade securities.

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In addition to his probation, Wang, 39, was ordered to pay a $200 special assessment fee.

Whitman was convicted in a jury trial on August 20, 2012 of four counts of conspiracy and securities fraud.

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 Christopher L. LaVigne and Jillian Berman are in charge of the prosecution.