Wilson Sonsini systems engineer pleads guilty to insider trading
A former technology employee at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati accused of using confidential information to reap more than $300,000 in stock profits has pleaded guilty to insider trading.
Dimitry Braverman, 41, of San Mateo, California, pleaded guilty on Thursday, report the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.) and a press release.
Braverman was a senior systems engineer responsible for financial software at the law firm. As a result, he had access to information about law firm clients and other parties in potential mergers.
Prosecutors alleged Braverman used confidential information about planned mergers and acquisitions of at least eight law firm clients in his insider trades. He made a first round of trades between 2010 and 2011, but he closed out the trades on the same day that another law firm employee, lawyer Matthew Kluger, was arrested on separate insider trading charges, prosecutors say. Braverman began insider trading again in November 2012 through an account he opened in the name of a relative in Russia, according to prosecutors.
A law firm employee called the case “deeply disturbing, to say the least” at the time of Braverman’s arrest.
Kluger pleaded guilty in 2012 and is serving 12 years in prison. He was accused in an insider trading scheme generating $37 million in profits that spanned his work at four large law firms, including Wilson Sonsini. A federal appeals court upheld his sentence last year.
In the press release, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said that Braverman “abused the trust not only of his employer, a major law firm, but also of the numerous companies that relied upon the law firm to handle sensitive matters. Today’s conviction is yet another in a long line.”
