Will Crown Lane displace Round Hill as Ignominy Avenue?

Practicing his perp walk

The feds have a former SAC trader by the short hairs and he’s squealing like a pig. No one has ever gone beyond whispering that Stevie Cohen’s been trading on inside information all these years – no proof, no hard evidence at all – but the rules of federal deal making is that you’ve got to give up the big guy if you want to walk, so I’m guessing that their coffee klatch conversations with the unfortunate junior trader are focusing on Steve and his Zamboni. Could be something, could be nothing, but it’s bound to be fun.

Cohen’s sunk something like $50 million into his place on Crown Lane, by most estimates, and unless Jerry Dumas decides he wants to add to his own holdings, there’s no way that money’s coming back. That’s if Cohen is forced to sell, of course, and that’s a wee bit premature. After all, it’s been almost a year since Walter Noel came a cropper and he hasn’t even started packing yet.

Susan Puliam, WSJ:

The widening investigation of insider trading on Wall Street is expected to examine transactions at Steven A. Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors, one of America’s largest and most successful hedge funds, according to people familiar with the matter.

A plea agreement between the government and a cooperating witness in the investigation, Richard Choo Beng Lee, indicates that Mr. Lee has agreed to provide information to prosecutors about a hedge fund where he worked between 1999 and 2004. That firm is SAC, according to people familiar with the matter.

In March 2009, after striking the deal to assist the government, Mr. Lee sought to get rehired by Mr. Cohen, people familiar with the matter say. Mr. Cohen declined to hire Mr. Lee because he was suspicious about the recent and abrupt closure of Mr. Lee’s hedge fund, Spherix, these people say.

Under the plea agreement, which was signed on Oct. 13, 2009, and made public Thursday, Mr. Lee will tell the government about transactions by other SAC traders, a person familiar with the matter says. Mr. Lee’s lawyer, Jeffrey Bornstein, declined to comment about what information his client “has or will be providing to the government.”

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