Another hedge-fund heavyweight may get slimed in Uncle Sam’s long-running insider-trading probe.
The government is seeking permission to name Level Global co-founder David Ganek a co-conspirator in the unfolding insider-trading trial against his former partner, Anthony Chiasson.
Prosecutor Antonia Apps, in a memo to Judge Richard Sullivan yesterday, said there is “substantial circumstantial evidence” showing that Ganek “did in fact know that [information on tech companies] came from sources inside those companies.”
“Accordingly, Mr. Ganek is a co-conspirator,” she said.
Apps’ request to label the 49-year-old a co-conspirator comes after former Level Global analyst Sam Adondakis, a key cooperating witness, testified that he never told Ganek he was receiving illegal tips.
But prosecutors say just because Adondakis didn’t tell him about the tips doesn’t mean Ganek didn’t know about them.
Chiasson is on trial in Manhattan federal court for allegedly trading on insider tips from Adondakis on Dell and Nvidia.
Ganek, an avid art collector who’s active on the New York social scene, has not been charged in the case.
If Apps’ request is granted, prosecutors will be able to show jurors communications between Ganek and a former Level Global trader. The judge has yet to rule on the request.
Apps filed with the judge snippets of interoffice communications showing Ganek discussing the tainted trades.
In one, Ganek asks a trader if Adondakis heard from “his [D]ell contact.”
The August 2008 instant message exchange occurred a few days before Level Global increased its position on Dell — based on an illegal tip from Adondakis. The illegal tip earned the firm a whopping $53 million profit.
Ganek’s lawyer John Carroll blasted the government’s evidence, including Adondakis’ testimony about a meeting that allegedly occurred shortly before the $53 million Dell trade.
Ganek was not even in the office that day, Carroll noted.
“The government says my client is a co-conspirator because of a meeting, a phone call and some loose language in e-mails,” Carroll said in an e-mailed statement.