NEW YORK — A recent Binghamton University graduate was indicted last week in connection with a Wall Street insider-trading scam that netted millions of dollars in illegal profits.
In the biggest such plot to hit Wall Street in more than a decade, Stanislav Shpigelman, a 2004 School of Management graduate and a resident of Brooklyn’s Sheepshead Bay, allegedly fed two co-conspirators inside information he obtained while working as an analyst in the mergers and acquisitions unit of financial management firm Merrill Lynch and Co. That information was used to make nearly $7 million in profitable transactions, the benefits of which were split between Shpigelman and the co-conspirators, Eugene Plotkin, 26, and David Pajcin, 29.
When he lived on campus, Shpigelman was a resident of Newing College’s Delaware Hall, and he later lived on Binghamton’s Murray Street. He is a member of the Alpha Phi Delta fraternity.
Shpigelman was one of SOM’s most promising graduates in 2004, said Upinder Dhillon, the school’s dean. Shpigelman was one of around 20 SOM students with “sterling” grade point averages chosen to be groomed for extra attention and help getting jobs on Wall Street’s top finance firms.
“It’s stunning, shocking, use whatever word you want. We’re in disbelief,” Dhillon said. “When you know somebody well, and you don’t have any idea of something like that happening, it’s a whole range of emotions.”
Still, Dhillon wasn’t ready to issue judgment on Shpigelman before the alum had had his day in court.
“The justice system has yet to take its due course,” Dhillon said. “We have to give Stan his due course.”
But Shpigelman’s day in court comes with its own twists. The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York who will likely prosecute the case is Michael Garcia — himself a 1983 graduate of Binghamton’s Harpur College.
A criminal complaint from Garcia’s office and a civil suit from the Securities and Exchange Commission maintain that Shpigelman would tip off Plotkin and Pajcin — an employee and former employee of wealth-management company Goldman Sachs, respectively — when major mergers were soon to take place, including the $5 billion acquisition of Reebok by Adidas in August 2005. He allegedly did so at least six times in all. And officials say that a Croatian seamstress and a New York exotic dancer, among at least seven others, got in on the profits by allowing their bank accounts to be used to buy and sell shares of the companies in question.
“This fraud is one of the most widespread, varied, and premeditated insider trading rings we have ever prosecuted,” said Mark K. Schonfeld, director of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Northeast Regional Office.
Shpigelman was released on $3 million bail after spending the weekend in jail, and he is subject to an evening curfew, according to Business Week. Attorneys for the accused did not speak to the press, and Garcia’s office declined comment, citing the fact that the investigation is still ongoing.
For a closer look at the case and the personalities involved, see Friday’s issue of Pipe Dream.