A former Goldman Sachs Group Inc bond analyst pleaded guilty on August 28 to helping lead a far-flung insider trading scheme involving tips about pending mergers and stolen copies of BusinessWeek magazine that netted more than $6.7 million in illicit gains.
Eugene Plotkin, 28, a former associate in the fixed income research division at Goldman Sachs, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud and insider trading charges at a hearing in federal magistrate court in New York.
He had been scheduled to go on trial on October 24. Prosecutors accused Plotkin and another former Goldman employee of trading off tips leaked by an ex-Merrill Lynch and Co Inc investment banking analyst and also from stolen advance copies of BusinessWeek that they obtained from printing plant workers.
Under a plea agreement, Plotkin is expected to be sentenced to anywhere from 4-3/4 to nearly six years in prison. He also agreed to forfeit $6.7 million. The Harvard-educated Plotkin and several other defendants were arrested in April 2006.
The case began in August 2005, when regulators grew suspicious of the options trading profits of a 63-year-old retired seamstress in Croatia. The account belonging to the retiree was frozen, and her nephew, David Pajcin, was charged with insider trading.
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