Monday, October 20, 2014

Feds Invoke 'Forfeiture' Move In Effort To Boot Innocent Wife, Kids From $1.9M Boca Mansion Co-Owned With Convicted Insider-Trading, Hedge Fund Hubby While Latter Preps For Nine Year Stay In Can

In New York City, the New York Post reports:
  • The wife of former SAC Capital moneyman Mathew Martoma doesn’t think she should have to give up her luxurious lifestyle just because her husband orchestrated the most lucrative insider trading scheme in history.

    Rosemary Martoma is trying to block the feds from seizing her share of the couple’s assets, including their $1.9 million Boca Raton, Fla., mansion where they moved after he was fired in 2010, and $4 million in bank accounts.

    Mathew Martoma was sentenced to nine years in prison and ordered to fork over $9.3 millionhis take of the $275 million profit his employer, hedge fund SAC Capital, reaped from his illegal trading.

    Rosemary, a former pediatrician, asked the court on Wednesday to set a hearing over her assertion that she should be able keep half of the properties.(1)

    She “agreed to give up her career, and care for the household and children, based on the promise that she would have equal, joint ownership of all income derived from the defendant’s work outside of the household,” her lawyers said in court papers.

    The same lawyers also represent Mathew Martoma and have been paid for by Steve Cohen, SAC Capital’s founder. Prosecutors tried to get Martoma to implicate Cohen without success.

    White-collar defense lawyers debunked her argument. “If one spouse steals money, the other spouse doesn’t get to keep it just because she quit work,” said Michael Bowe of Kasowitz Benson Torres & Friedman.

    Separately, the government on Tuesday opposed Mathew Martoma’s request to stay out of prison on appeal instead of surrendering Nov. 10. The government considers him a flight risk.