When former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement employee Michael Cohn left in 2018, he took more than his ambitions to work on Wall Street, prosecutors say.
Before leaving, Cohn hacked into the regulator’s computers and stole sensitive information about an ongoing probe which he then used to land a job at the private equity firm that was being investigated, according to prosecutors.
Cohn was charged in a superseding indictment that was unsealed Wednesday in federal court in Central Islip, New York. It’s not clear when he was first indicted. Cohn was released Wednesday on a $250,000 bond.
Cohn worked in the SEC’s enforcement division, asset management unit, from 2014 to 2018, according to his LinkedIn profile.
He left Oct. 12, 2018, and four days later, he was named the chief compliance officer at the private equity firm, GPB Capital Holdings LLC, based in Manhattan and Garden City, according to the U.S. In the weeks before leaving, prosecutors said he repeatedly accessed the SEC’s computers and stole information related to the enforcement division’s investigation of GPB.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.