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By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon, Thread Video
Honduras - The Source - The Root - etc

SDNY COURTHOUSE, Jan 7 –From Buffalo Wild Wings to a London insiders traders love next, an arrest on Friday October 18 led to an unsealed indictment on October 21 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. No honor, nor borders, among thieves.  On October 22 the US Attorney's Office announced more, below.

  But the cases are split between SDNY judges. On January 6, the trial of Telemaque Lavidas began before Judge Denise Cote. Assistant US Attorney Daniel Tracer in a short opening statement described it as an open and cut case, which will include cooperating witness Marc Demane.

  Lavidas' lawyer John Streeter told that jury Demane is simply trying to reduce his sentence and has no first hand information. Here's some of how it went, live-tweeted here.

 Hours after the opening statements, the US Attorney office asked Judge Cote to ban discussion of how it conducted its investigation: "Based on the contents of defense counsel’s opening statement, the Government respectfully requests a ruling in limine precluding the defense from introducing evidence about investigative techniques that the Government employed during the course of the investigation. As set forth below, such evidence improperly suggests that the jury shift its attention from the charges against the defendant to the conduct of the investigation, and is irrelevant and misleading. 1. Background In opening statements, defense counsel on two separate occasions engaged in a recitation of the Government’s investigation and the various investigative steps that have been taken with respect both to this defendant and other individuals. For example, defense counsel said: The third thing is that you are going to learn that the government gathered millions and millions of e-mails and text messages and electronic devices, phones and computers and all kinds of evidence from this huge network of people who were engaging in insider trading – from Demane, from Nikas, from their whole network. And you are also going to learn that they gathered e-mails, and phones, and computers and all kinds of other evidence from Mr. Lavidas. (Tr. 32). Later in his opening, defense counsel returned to the same topic: The third thing that I mentioned is that the government has been investigating this case for years. They have collected millions of e-mails and text messages. And they have collected Mr. Lavidas’s phones, his iPad, his computer, his documents. They have collected a long list of phones, computers, disc drives from Mr. Nikas. They collected a long list of those same things from Mr. Demane. And they collected those same things secretly, for years, from Google and other companies where their e-mail accounts were.... The Government respectfully requests that the Court preclude the defendant from introducing evidence about investigative techniques that the Government employed during the course of the investigation."

  The US Attorney doesn't want the jury to hear about this. And the public? Inner City Press will cover this case.

  Before an unsuccessful October 23 bail argument, ReedSmith argued to Judge Denise Cote: "Re: United States v. Nikas, et al.; 19 CRIM 716 Dear Judge Cote: In anticipation of the bail hearing scheduled for today at 12:45 pm, we write to bring additional information to the Court’s attention. Several hours after the defendant filed his renewed application for bail with this Court yesterday afternoon, Judge Pauley denied the government’s application to detain Bryan Cohen, an unidentified coconspirator in the case against Mr. Lavidas, who was charged in a separate indictment (19 CRIM 741) alleging his participation in the insider trading conspiracy involving Mr. Nikas and Mr. Lavidas."

 On Black Friday November 29 Lavidas' lawyers at Dechert and ReedSmith filed motions for disclosure of Grand Jury and Brady material complete with heavily redacted exhibits and references to a disk with password USAOsdny2019! - this while the US Attorney's office still withholds from the Press and public as of Christmas Eve the exhibits it used in the OneCoin / US v. Mark Scott trial and was completed last month.

   On Christmas Eve the government opposed Lavidas' subpoena to the MCC for records concerning transportation of an unnamed cooperator to meetings with the US Attorney. The cooperator has been in the MCC since being extradited to the US in May 2019. The US' argument spans the East River to the MDC in Brooklyn: "in comparable circumstances, courts have quashed similar Rule 17(c) subpoenas directed to the MCC and the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. See, e.g., Case 1:19-cr-00716-DLC Document 73 Filed 12/24/19 Page 6 of 8 6 Jones, 17 Cr. 791 (LAK); Percoco, 16 Cr. 776 (VEC); see also United States v. DiPietro, No. S502 Cr. 1237 (SWK), 2005 WL 1279222, *1 (S.D.N.Y. May 26, 2005) (quashing a subpoena seeking from the MDC and MCC all telephone calls and visitor records of certain incarcerated witnesses, holding that such material “go[es] far beyond the bounds of permissible discovery in a criminal case.')"

 On December 26 Lavidas' lawyers defended their MCC subpoenas, and put into the record before Judge Cote a copy of a December 11 letter to Lavidas informing him a US Attorney subpoena about him served on Columbia University. The University's paralegal Elizabeth Conley, cc-ing Columbia's Associate General Counsel Jessica Fenton, told Lavidas that "Columbia University intends to comply with the subpoena."

 On October 18 Bryan Cohen of Goldman Sachs was arrested for insider trading including on Buffalo Wild Wings. Then on October 21 an indictment was unsealed, against Darina Windsor and Benjamin Taylor of Moelis & Co..

    It says that Windsor and Taylor "were involved in a romantic relationship with each other and resided together in an apartment located in London."

   Windsor sent an email to Taylor headed, "Once upon a time, there was a Pops search for Truffles in the Forest." Attached to the email was confidential information related to Onyx...

    Now a day after Inner City Press reported the above, the US Attorney for the SDNY has put out a press release, including: "the unsealing of four indictments and the arrests of three members of a wide-ranging international insider trading ring.  BRYAN COHEN, an investment banker based in New York, and TELEMAQUE LAVIDAS, the son of a member of the board of directors of Ariad Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (“Ariad”), which, until 2017, was a Boston-based publicly traded company, were both arrested on Friday in Manhattan.  JOSEPH EL-KHOURI, a securities trader, was arrested yesterday in the United Kingdom, and the United States Government will be seeking his extradition to the United States.  BENJAMIN TAYLOR and DARINA WINDSOR, former investment bankers who worked in London, as well as GEORGIOS NIKAS, a securities trader who also owns various business interests in Europe and the United States, including a chain of Greek restaurants in New York, remain at large." We will be in the Magistrates Court. Watch this site.