Ex-Silicon Valley law firm worker gets 2 years prison for insider trading
By Nate Raymond
NEW YORK, July 29 (Reuters) - A former employee of a major Silicon Valley law firm was sentenced to two years in prison on Wednesday for illegally trading ahead of mergers that were underway at the firm.
Lawyers for Dimitry Braverman, 42, had sought a sentence of home confinement in light of his November guilty plea to securities fraud. But U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer in Manhattan said his insider trading was too prolonged to deserve a light sentence.
"It is important when an insider trader gets caught - and a repeated insider trader as here - that a substantial sentence is imposed," Engelmayer said.
Braverman, an immigrant from Ukraine who lives in San Mateo, California, in court apologized for his conduct while employed in Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati's information technology department.
His lawyer, Silvia Serpe, said he had been "remorseful since day one."
The sentencing marked the second time in three years that a former employee at Wilson Sonsini was sentenced for insider trading. Matthew Kluger, a former associate, was sentenced in 2012 to a record 12 years in prison.
The 670-lawyer Palo Alto-based law firm is well known for its work for major technology companies, having helped take the likes of Apple Inc and Google Inc public.
Prosecutors said Braverman, a senior systems engineer, capitalized on his access to computer and database systems to gain access to confidential client-related information that gave him an insight into the firm's work on potential mergers and acquisitions.
From 2010 to 2013, Braverman made $304,910 trading ahead of several deal announcements, including in 2013 Dealertrack Technologies Inc's acquisition of Dealer.com and Seagate Technology Plc's purchase of Xyratex Ltd, prosecutors said.
After making four trades ahead of merger announcements, Braverman ceased his insider trading after hearing about Kluger's arrest in April 2011 for trading on secret deal information, prosecutors said.
But in late 2012, after Kluger was sentenced, Braverman resumed his insider trading, using a brokerage account in the name of his father-in-law in Russia to make four more trades, prosecutors said.
"If ever there was a wake up call for you to stop your insider trading, that should have been it," Engelmayer said at Wednesday's hearing.
Braverman was arrested in September and pleaded guilty two months later to a single securities fraud count. On top his prison sentence, Braverman has also agreed to pay the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission $520,433.
The case is U.S. v. Braverman, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 14-00748.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Grant McCool)
