Jury Deliberating In Chiasson, Newman Insider-Trading Case

A federal jury is mulling the fates of two former hedge fund managers after defense lawyers blasted the government's key witnesses.

The jury began deliberating yesterday after Level Global Investors founder Anthony Chiasson's lawyer's closing statement. Prosecutors and lawyers for former Diamondback Capital Management portfolio manager Todd Newman made their final pitches on Tuesday.

Echoing Newman's lawyer, Chiasson's attorney, Reid Weingarten, blasted the government's cooperating witnesses, who implicated Chiasson and Newman in the allegedly illegal trading. Weingarten focuses on Sypridion Adondakis, known as Sam, his client's former analyst.

"Sam Adondakis will lie when it's in his interest to do so," Weingarten said. "You can't get around that one."

The defense claims that Chiasson and Newman, two of the eight men charged in the $70 million scheme, did not know that their subordinates were giving them insider information. Prosecutors sought to show that they did with a number of electronic communications, including those involving unindicted co-conspirators David Ganek, Chiasson's co-founder at Level Global, and Michael Steinberg, a fund manager at SAC Capital Advisors.

Over the past four years, the government has won some 70 convictions for insider-trading. Most have been guilty pleas, but prosecutors have yet to lose a jury verdict.