What a difference an arrest can make.
When the FBI busted hedge fund whiz Danielle Chiesi on charges of insider trading, she looked straight out of central casting for a prison flick.
Her stringy, slicked-back hair, bloated face and dumpy sweater didn’t look like they belonged to a multi-millionaire Wall Street player who could easily afford a closet full of $1,000 Christian Lou boutin pumps.
But Chiesi showed up with a slim new look in federal court yesterday to plead not guilty to being involved in a $20.8 million insider-trading scam at Galleon Group.
At her first public appearance since being arrested two months ago, Chiesi smiled at a horde of photographers and TV cameras as she strode across an icy sidewalk into Manhattan federal court. Her coifed appearance, complete with designer garb and a classic string of pearls, cleared Chiesi of any past fashion crimes.
She also stole the show from her co-defendant, Raj Rajaratnam, the bil lionaire founder of Gal leon Group.
Both pleaded not guilty yesterday to fed eral charges they used information gleaned from high-ranking execu tives to score huge gains trading on major stocks, including Google.
They were indicted last week on charges of engi neering one of the largest insider-trading cases in recent Wall Street an nals, and had re mained free on bail.
Rajaratnam, 52, faces as much as 145 years in prison, while Chiesi, 44, could face 155 years in prison.
The two were caught in a two-year insider-trading crackdown that involved wiretaps. Prosecutors are pushing for a trial in June or July, but defense lawyers are requesting more time to go through hundreds of hours of taped telephone conversations. with Reuven Fenton