A former OppenheimerFunds quantitative analyst was ordered to spend almost three years in federal prison for insider trading that made him $8.5 million.

Sergei Polevikov, 48, was sentenced to 33 months by U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman in Manhattan on Tuesday and ordered to pay a $10 million fine. Polevikov pleaded guilty in December to securities fraud, admitting that he used confidential information to front-run trades made by his firm’s clients from 2014 to at least 2019. He forfeited $8.56 million as part of his plea deal.

Polevikov would see orders on an internal system as they were processed and then make the same trades in a brokerage account he opened in his wife’s account, taking advantage of small price changes in stocks that occur after a large order is placed, according to prosecutors. He made around 2,800 trades in this manner.

While OppenheimerFunds wasn’t cited by name in the court documents, prosecutors identified it as his employer in court on Tuesday. They said he was let go from the firm after its 2019 acquisition by Invesco, but his illegal trades only came to light later, when the Securities and Exchange Commission flagged them as part of an analysis of “highly successful” individual brokerage accounts.

‘Game the System’
Federal sentencing guidelines had called for Polevikov to spend 57 to 71 months behind bars. Prosecutors had asked Liman to impose a sentence that was below the guidelines but still a “substantial term of imprisonment,” citing the “lengthy and protracted nature of his offense, the sophistication and deception inherent in the crime” and its consequences for “the integrity of U.S. financial markets.”

The court “must send a message to the investing public that traders like the defendant will not be permitted to game the system to get guaranteed profits,” the government said in its sentencing memo.

Lawyers for Polevikov, of Port Washington, New York, had asked Liman to sentence him to no more than two years in prison, saying he had already paid a heavy price.

“Sergei’s reputation and his career are ruined,” his attorney, Michael Gerber said. “The life he has built over decades is in shambles. Sergei’s front-running has destroyed everything he’s worked for for his entire life and led to tremendous pain for him and his family.”

‘Difficult Circumstances’
Polevikov, who came to the U.S. from Belarus when he was 22, expressed remorse to the judge before sentence was imposed.

“I come before you in shame,” he said. “I committed a serious crime for years. I have nobody to blame but myself. I have destroyed the life my wife and I built and worse.”

Liman noted that Polevikov grew up in “extremely difficult circumstances” in Belarus as the son of a math professor and a political dissident but said he committed “very serious crimes” and must face the consequences.

The case is U.S. v Polevikov, 21-cr-774, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York.

This article was provided by Bloomberg News.