Billionaire hedge-fund manager Stevie Cohen could get off easy.
The man who ran what prosecutors this summer called “a magnet for market cheaters’’ — allegedly the biggest insider-trading ring ever — could end up paying just 15 percent of his personal fortune to settle criminal charges against his SAC Capital hedge-fund firm.
Cohen and the government have a tentative deal that would force his firm to pay a fine between $1.2 billion to $1.4 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported on the tentative deal.
If it is agreed to at that range, it would be the largest-ever insider trading settlement — even though it’s a smallish slice of Cohen’s $9 billion personal fortune.
The 57-year-old investor — once the most lauded hedge-fund manager in the world — has been in Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara’s cross-hairs for years. Any deal would not affect a criminal probe into Cohen personally, the Journal reported.
The US Attorney and SAC declined to comment.
Prosecutors and SAC are still negotiating how long Cohen would be barred from managing outside money and what charges SAC would plead guilty to, the Journal reported.
A federal grand jury indicted SAC in July.
Six former SAC employees have pleaded guilty to insider trading while employed at SAC, which the government cited as proof that the firm allowed a “systematic” insider-trading scheme to unfold from 1999 to 2010.
Two others, Michael Steinberg and Mathew Martoma, are facing trials in upcoming months.