Former UBS exec sentenced in NY

A former UBS AG executive who hatched an insider-trading scheme that prosecutors said was one of the biggest on Wall Street since the 1980s was sentenced on Monday to 78 months in prison.

A lawyer for Mitchel Guttenberg had asked U.S. District Judge Deborah A. Batts to give his client only 36 months, calling him a "broken man" who lost his marriage and home since his arrest in 2007.

"The punishment in real-life terms ... has been severe," said attorney Sean O'Shay.

But Batts handed out the harsher sentence after citing evidence that Guttenberg was an instigator in a $14 million plot "to give inside information to others to use illegally."

The defendant pleaded guilty on the eve of his trial earlier this year to conspiracy and securities fraud.

Guttenberg had been an executive director and institutional client manager at UBS — a position that gave him access to stock recommendations by analysts before the information was made public.

During a meeting at Manhattan's famed Oyster Bar in Grand Central Terminal in 2001, Guttenberg offered to give a friend inside stock tips in exchange for forgiving a $25,000 debt and for a cut of the profits. Over the next six years, the friend made millions of dollars by trading stocks for himself and two hedge funds he managed.

Prosecutors said that over time, Guttenberg cut similar deals with others, including another hedge-fund manager. He routinely provided tips about ratings changes on stocks such as Amgen Corp., Whole Foods Market Inc., Caterpillar Inc. and Union Pacific Corp., authorities said.

Guttenberg sought to cover his tracks by using coded text messages made from disposable cell phones, and by accepting his kickbacks only in cash, authorities said.

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