- Title: New York congressman to plead guilty in insider trading case
- Date: 30th September 2019
- Summary: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (FILE - AUGUST 8, 2018) (REUTERS) (MUTE) VARIOUS OF INDICTMENT AGAINST COLLINS, HIS SON CAMERON COLLINS AND STEPHEN ZARSKY
- Embargoed: 14th October 2019 18:13
- Keywords: Chris Collins insider trading Republican Congressman Innate
- Location: NEW YORK CITY + BUFFALO, NEW YORK + CLEVELAND, OHIO + WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES
- City: NEW YORK CITY + BUFFALO, NEW YORK + CLEVELAND, OHIO + WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES
- Country: USA
- Topics: Crime/Law/Justice,Judicial Process/Court Cases/Court Decisions
- Reuters ID: LVA003AYUP0EF
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: PLEASE NOTE: ALL MATERIAL IN THIS EDIT IS FILE - NO TODAY FOOTAGE
Chris Collins, a Republican U.S. congressman from New York, is expected to plead guilty on Tuesday (October 1) in a case charging him with taking part in an insider trading scheme involving an Australian biotechnology company.
Collins' son, Cameron Collins, and another man, Stephen Zarsky, are also scheduled to plead guilty in the case on Thursday, court records show.
A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman, whose office is prosecuting the case, declined to comment. Lawyers for Chris and Cameron Collins and for Zarsky could not immediately be reached.
Chris Collins represents New York's 27th Congressional District, which includes areas surrounding Buffalo and Rochester. He won reelection last November, three months after he was criminally charged.
The criminal case relates to Innate Immunotherapeutics Ltd., a company for which Christopher Collins sat on the board and held a 16.8% stake.
Prosecutors allege that in June 2017, while attending the congressional picnic at the White House, Collins learned in an email from Innate's chief executive that a clinical trial for its proposed multiple sclerosis drug MIS416 had failed.
Collins immediately told the trial failure news to his son, who in turn told his fiancée, Lauren Zarsky, and her parents, Dorothy and Stephen Zarsky, prosecutors allege.
Christopher Collins did not trade his own Innate stock, which lost millions of dollars in value. Prosecutors said the congressman was "virtually precluded" from trading in part because he already faced a congressional ethics probe over Innate.
However, prosecutors said others used the insider information to avoid more than $768,000 in losses when Innate's share price plunged 92% after news of the MS drug's failure became public.
Lauren and Dorothy Zarsky were not criminally charged, but reached civil settlements with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2019. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None