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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
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Banker Convicted Anew at Inside-Trading Retrial

Just more than three years after his original conviction, former JPMorgan Chase banker Sean Stewart was found guilty Monday of participating in a father-son insider-trading conspiracy.

MANHATTAN (CN) – Just more than three years after his original conviction, former JPMorgan Chase banker Sean Stewart was found guilty Monday of participating in a father-son insider-trading conspiracy.

The criminal cases against Sean and Robert Stewart have been swirling about the Southern District of New York since their arrest in May 2015. Prosecutors charged Sean Stewart with using his position at JPMorgan to tip his father off about acquisitions of five health care companies from 2011 to 2014.

Months after his arrest, Robert Stewart pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit securities fraud and eventually was sentenced to four years of probation. The son meanwhile pushed his case to trial — twice, a move that potentially opens him up to decades of imprisonment.

When the Second Circuit reversed Sean Stewart's original conviction last year, it took issue with the failure to let him supply evidence geared at undermining a damaging quote from his father.

“I can’t believe it,” Robert Stewart quoted his son Sean as saying. “I handed you this on a silver platter, and you didn’t invest.”

But the FBI’s post-arrest interview with the father told a different story. Robert Stewart told agents at the time that his son told him that he could have made money “if” he had invested, and that he had been drinking at the time.

The Second Circuit held 2-1 that this missing context could have shaped the outcome in a case that came down to intent.

In both trials, a jury convicted Stewart on an array of charges, including securities fraud and related conspiracies counts. Stewart, 38, was convicted today of one count of conspiring to commit securities fraud and tender-offer fraud, one count of conspiring to commit wire fraud, six counts of securities fraud and one count of tender offer fraud. He will be sentenced on Jan. 29.

Categories / Criminal, Trials

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