Outside the lower Manhattan federal courthouse on Wednesday, Mother Nature dropped a wintry mix of snow, sleet and rain, making the morning commute for thousands a nightmare.
Inside the majestic 78-year-old building, the jury weighing the fate of former SAC Capital executive Mathew Martoma sent a note to the judge in the afternoon asking for the entire 150-page transcript of the testimony of a defense expert witness.
The note seemed to signal the jury was seriously weighing the defense alibi, and it clearly heartened Martoma and his legal team.
For at least a short while, Martoma’s gloomy appearance, which reflected the weather outside the courtroom windows, washed away.
It was around 2:30 p.m. when the jury, in its second day of deliberations, asked to see the testimony of NYU radiologist Thomas Wisniewski, an expert witness for the defense.
Just a day earlier, Martoma’s defense team was more dour after the jury seemed to be leaning toward a conviction. On Tuesday, jurors appeared to already have determined that the government had convinced them that Martoma had “nonpublic material information” as they sent a note looking to see if Martoma knew that the doctors who gave him the information were benefiting from it.
The note on Wednesday, many in the courtroom agreed, seems to indicate the jurors were still uncertain whether the information was “nonpublic” after all, even if it was material.
Wisniewski had testified that the final presentation on the Alzbeimer’s drug results for Elan and Wyeth on July 29 was “similar in substance” to the June 17 press release that gave the top-line results.
Even if Martoma received the presentation from one of the doctors ahead of time, as the prosecution has shown, the defense has argued that the similarity of the press release and the final trial results meant it was already public and thus does not constitute inside information.
The predominantly white jury of seven women and five men includes an accountant, an insurance underwriter, a CEO, a lawyer, an NYU film professor and a bus driver.
Martoma is facing at least 15 years in prison if convicted of using inside information on the drug trials key to the most profitable trade ever using inside information.
The deliberations will continue Thursday morning.