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Wall Street’s Moby Dick may be off the hook . . . at least for now.
Billionaire hedge-fund honcho Steve Cohen is likely to avoid getting slapped with criminal charges related to a massive insider trading scheme ahead of a July 29 deadline, according to a report yesterday.
Prosecutors have been probing Cohen and his SAC Capital for years, but as the late-July deadline looms, they have not been able to flip Mathew Martoma, a former top SAC trader, to gain key evidence and therefore feel the deadline will pass without an indictment, the report, citing people familiar with the situation, maintained.
Hard-hitting Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara, who has been pursuing Cohen like Captain Ahab chased his prey and has already rung up dozens of insider-trading convictions and guilty pleas, may be forced to change strategies on Cohen.
For the 57-year-old Stamford, Conn., investor, news that the July deadline will come and go without any charges being filed has to taste sweet.
Investors have pulled billions of dollars from his fund fearing an indictment and his reputation has taken a hit.
Cohen has not been charged with any crime or civil misstep and maintains his innocence. A spokesman for the mogul declined to comment, as did a spokeswoman for Bharara.
Still, Cohen isn’t totally off the hook.
The Securities and Exchange Commission, which already whacked an SAC-related unit, CR Intrinsic, with a $616 million penalty back in March, still is pursuing a civil case against the hedge boss, according to WSJ.com, which was the first to report that Bharara’s office believed it would not have the goods to indict Cohen before the July deadline.
Plus, as The Post reported exclusively in June, Bharara believes there is still a way to indict Cohen that doesn’t run afoul of the five-year statute of limitations tied to the Martoma trades in 2008.
“They are scorched earth, they are relentless” said Michael Bachner, a securities attorney not involved in the case.
Bharara’s Plan B involves trying to prove SAC is part of a broader criminal enterprise with Cohen at its center.
“They could try and extend the statute by arguing that conspiracy is ongoing and that there’s been an effort to obstruct justice or conceal the activity,” Bachner noted.
A similar idea would be to try and employ the so-called RICO —Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations act — typically used on mob bosses to try and demonstrate a far-reaching criminal enterprise at work.
But some see the Plan B as a stretch.
“I don’t think there are any other tricks in the bag for the government to pull on this case,” said Anthony Sabino, a white-collar crime lawyer and St. John’s University law professor.
“If the government doesn’t feel confident enough to bring a straightforward case on insider trading, I find it hard to believe they can pull together any sort of RICO case, which is a much higher bar,” Sabino added.
Cohen, who has been declaring his innocence related to the insider trading allegations, has faced billions of investor dough pulled from his funds — as rumors swirled that he might shut down the fund or convert it into a family office amid the stress of the government probe.