Jury's request for SAC defense witness transcript may lean to a not-guilty verdict for Martoma

The second day of jury deliberations for the insider trading trial of ex-SAC Capital Advisors trader Mathew Martoma just got very interesting. The New York Times said that Martoma might get a not-guilty verdict after jurors requested a trasncript of the testimony of one of the witnesses from the defendant's camp on Wednesday.

DealBook said the jury is composed of five men and seven women, which includes a chief executive, a New York University professor and a lawyer. The jurors had weathered the winter storm and icy roads in order to fulfill their duties at the Lower Manhattan federal courthouse.

After deliberations a little after 10AM that day, the jurors requested the transcript of one of the defense's witnesses. However, DealBook quoted lawyers, who said that it is highli impossible to predict how the jury will review the evidence and determine the likelihood of their verdict regarding the case.

Martoma has been charged with actively looking for confidential information from two doctors who were involved in a clinical drug trial in bad faith, DealBook said. The drug trial was for an experimental medication for Alzheimer's disease being developed by pharmaceutical firms Elan and Wyeth. It was reported that one of the docyors, Dr. Sidney Gilman, tesified against Martoma and said he allowed the defendant to take a look at the final results of the drug trial weeks prior to the results were made known to the public.

DealBook said prosecutors argued that Martoma illegally used the information to gain advantage in trading, which resulted to a liquidation of a $700 million investment in both pharmaceutical companies prior to the announcement. Authorities have said that the knowledge obtained by Martoma benefited him and SAC Capital with a $275 million in gains.

DealBook said that deliberations by the jury is still ongoing, Legal experts have said that if Martoma was handed out a guilty verdict, he will most likely serve a jail sentence of up to 10 years.

Tags

Mathew Martoma, SAC Capital Advisors, Elan, Wyeth

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