Business

Feds’ focus will now go back to Cohen: lawyer

The conviction of Mathew Martoma will likely reinvigorate the government’s probe on hedge-fund mogul Steve Cohen, a lawyer familiar with the billionaire’s fund told The Post.

Martoma, a former portfolio manager at Cohen’s SAC Capital, was found guilty Thursday of three criminal insider-trading counts.

The 39-year-old disgraced money man is the eighth current or former SAC employee to be found guilty of insider trading. SAC has also pled guilty to similar charges.

“If the government convicts the company and so many of its employees but never charges the company’s leader, who was directly involved in many of these illegal trades, I think this insider-trading crackdown will be viewed ultimately as a failure,” said Michael Bowe, the lawyer who deposed Cohen for a civil suit and got him talking about insider trading.

Parts of the deposition were featured in the recent Frontline documentary, “To Catch a Trader.”

During the Martoma trial, the government’s star witness, Dr. Sidney Gilman, said he was told by an FBI agent interviewing him that the feds were really after Cohen — one of the most successful hedge-fund managers in history — not him.

Gilman is just a “grain of sand” in the government’s overriding objective of taking down Cohen, the FBI said, according to Gilman.

US Attorney Preet Bharara called SAC a “magnet for cheaters” when he announced an indictment against the company last summer.

Cohen has not been charged with any crimes and maintains that he operated legally at all times.