Senior SAC Capital manager indicted

A federal grand jury indicted Michael Steinberg, considered to be among the most senior portfolio managers of SAC Capital Advisors L.P., March 28 with conspiracy to commit securities fraud and four counts of securities fraud.

Prosecutors allege Steinberg, who has worked for SAC Capital since 1997 and its Sigma Capital Management unit for the past 10 years, participated in an insider trading scheme involving 2008 and 2009 trades in shares of Dell Inc. and Nvidia Corp.

Steinberg, who was arrested Friday morning at his Park Avenue apartment, was expected to make a court appearance later in the day. SAC Capital, a Stamford hedge fund with more than $14 billion in assets under management, and founder Steven A. Cohen have not been charged with wrongdoing in the case.

Just two weeks ago, Sigma Capital settled charges of insider trading with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for nearly $14 million. While Sigma Capital did not admit any wrongdoing as part of the settlement, it had been charged with allegedly trading on nonpublic information obtained through an analyst about the quarterly earnings of Dell and Nvidia.

Jon Horvath, the analyst accused of providing the information on Dell and Nvidia, recently pleaded guilty to charges of insider trading. As part of his plea deal, Horvath implicated Steinberg, according to court documents.

A lawyer for Steinberg issued a statement saying that his client “did absolutely nothing wrong” and that Steinberg was “caught in the crossfire of aggressive investigations of others,” according to multiple published reports.

Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement that Steinberg “was another Wall Street insider who fed off a corrupt grapevine of proprietary and confidential information cultivated by other professionals who made their own rules to make money.”