Business

Better late than…?

The feds won their 10th guilty plea today in a widespread insider trading case centering on hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam.

Ali Hariri, a former executive with Santa Clara, Calif., chipmaker Atheros Communications, joined the ranks of those admitting guilt in a case where more than 20 people, from lawyers to high- level corporate executives, have been arrested for passing on or trading on confidential information.

Standing before a judge in Manhattan’s federal court, the San Francisco resident admitted to one charge of securities fraud and one charge of conspiracy to commit securities fraud. He faces up to 25 years in jail.

Harari told the judge he gave information — “the numbers at the company that I worked for” — to an unnamed person who the feds say ran a hedge fund. The friend was identified previously in a lawsuit by the Securities and Exchange Commission, as Ali Far, founder of California hedge fund Spherix Capital.

Prosecutors said Hariri obtained information regarding Atheros’ quarterly earnings ahead of the release in January 2009, and provided it to his friend, who traded on it for a profit of “hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

Hariri doesn’t have a cooperation agreement, but his plea agreement calls for a prison term of two to two-and-a-half years.