Liquidating Position
Prosecutors said in a pretrial memo to the court that minutes after receiving Horvath’s memo, Cohen and Plotkin reduced their holdings in Dell, prosecutors said. Plotkin hasn’t been accused of wrongdoing.
Within minutes of Cohen’s traders getting the Aug. 26, 2008 e-mail from Horvath, Cohen, who owned about 500,000 shares of Dell, began “liquidating his entire position.” By the time Dell announced its earnings two days later, Cohen had avoided losses of $1.7 million in his portfolio and another $1.8 million in a second portfolio, prosecutors said in court papers.
While the jury hearing Steinberg’s case hasn’t been told whether Cohen changed his position, they heard about the congratulatory e-mail the billionaire SAC founder sent Horvath and Steinberg showing his pleasure with the results.
Later the night of Aug. 28, 2008, Steinberg sent Cohen an e-mail replying to the founder’s compliment.
“Thanks ... this ole dog can still hunt,” Steinberg wrote, adding, “Maybe it’s time for the firm to encourage for more collaboration between tech teams?”
Jurors were also shown a Nov. 14, 2008, instant-message exchange between Cohen and Steinberg, ahead of Dell’s earnings announcements. Steinberg wrote in texting shorthand, “Dell, repts Thursday” adding, “maybe u can buy stock and short call too, we’ve been good here if u remember.”
‘That’s Life’
Cohen responded, “call me” adding, “It’s a shame -- cause I can be helpful to you too, but that’s life.”
“Steve, I have an analyst that covers this stock, he has industry contacts, I’m not hiding anything from u,” Steinberg wrote.