Ex-Wilson Sonsini worker who ignored 'wake-up call' insider-trade case gets 2 years
A former computer system engineer at a powerhouse Silicon Valley law firm was sentenced Wednesday to two years in federal prison for insider trading.
Dimitry Braverman, 42, used his position at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati to access confidential information about potential mergers and acquisitions from the firm’s computer system, prosecutors in the Manhattan case said, earning over $300,000 by illegally trading ahead of deal announcements between 2010 and 2013.
The Associated Press, Bloomberg, Reuters and the Wall Street Journal Law Blog (sub. req.) have stories.
Braverman pleaded guilty to securities fraud and is remorseful, his lawyer said. However, U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer called him a repeat offender, pointing out that the 2011 arrest and subsequent insider-trading conviction of a lawyer who formerly worked at Wilson Sonsini and other major firms should have warned Braverman to put the brakes on.
“If ever there was a wake-up call for you to stop your insider trading, that should have been it,” Engelmayer said. In fact, Braverman did stop for a while after hearing of Matthew Kluger’s case. But Braverman resumed trading once Kluger was sentenced in 2012 to a record 12-year prison term for insider trading related to his work at Wilson Sonsini and other law firms.
The law firms cooperated with investigators and were not accused of any wrongdoing.
Related coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Wilson Sonsini systems engineer pleads guilty to insider trading”
See also:
ABAJournal.com: “Record 12-year term OK’d for ex-associate who revealed BigLaw deal info in $37M insider-trade scheme”