People v. Napolitano

282 A.D.2d 49, 724 N.Y.S.2d 702, 2001 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 3620
CourtAppellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York
DecidedApril 12, 2001
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 282 A.D.2d 49 (People v. Napolitano) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Napolitano, 282 A.D.2d 49, 724 N.Y.S.2d 702, 2001 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 3620 (N.Y. Ct. App. 2001).

Opinions

OPINION OF THE COURT

Andrias, J.

The trial evidence established beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant engaged in conduct known in Federal jurisprudence as insider trading, and we are in agreement that this conduct violated the Martin Act (General Business Law art 23-A) and the Penal Law provisions under which defendant was convicted.

Such convictions were based upon evidence that Marisa Baridis, an employee first of Smith Barney, Inc. and then of Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter, Discover & Co. (hereinafter collectively Smith Barney), who worked in their respective “control groups,” supplied defendant’s partner Jeffrey Streich (and, through him, defendant) with confidential, nonpublic information about prospective corporate actions, such as takeovers, mergers and acquisitions, which were likely to enhance the value of the corporation’s stock, and that defendant and his partner, on the basis of such information, then purchased stock in such companies, thereby realizing substantial short-term profits, a portion of which they shared with Baridis in return for her ongoing supply of information.

Contrary to defendant’s principal argument, the People were not required to prove that Baridis, who was the source of the insider information, was an “insider” of the corporations whose securities were purchased by defendant. Under any theory of insider trading, Baridis’s duty not to trade on the confidential information that she obtained by virtue of her position of confidence and trust extended to defendant because there was sufficient proof that he knew or should have known that the material information was confidential and wrongfully obtained (see, United States v O’Hagan, 521 US 642). In this regard, there was overwhelming evidence, including properly corroborated accomplice testimony, that defendant knew he was receiving wrongfully obtained confidential information.

[52]*52Defendant, perhaps taking his cue from a New York Law Journal article critical of the trial court’s dismissal motion analysis of Federal insider trading law (John F. X. Peloso and Stuart M. Sarnoff, Securities and Commodities Litigation, State Law Insider Trading Prosecution Under Martin Act, NYLJ, Oct. 15 1998, at 3, col 1), argues that none of the Penal Law charges are sustainable, as a matter of law, by evidence of a breach of duty to the corporate shareholders who were defendant’s alleged victims.

The trial court upheld the Penal Law charges upon the ground that the tippees of the Baridis information had a duty which was derivative of Baridis’s duty to shareholders arising from her status as a “corporate insider” (citing Matter of Cady, Roberts & Co, 40 SEC 907). Defendant asserts that since Baridis was not a corporate insider, but rather was a corporate “outsider,” like the defendant in United States v O’Hagan (521 US 642), she had a duty of disclosure only to her employer and not to the shareholders of the corporations whose stock he traded. Thus, according to defendant, even if he knew of Baridis’s duty, he obtained no stolen property from her employer, thus rendering “larceny” concepts inapplicable. With respect to criminal possession of stolen property and conspiracy, defendant argues that since there was no duty to disclose to the shareholders, there could be no larceny by false pretenses. Absent a duty to shareholders, he urges, there also could be no scheme to defraud them. Finally, defendant also argues that, at the very least, the trial court should have considered the “rule of lenity” and determined that the requirements of the larceny, fraud, and stolen property statutes were not properly applied (cf., Matter of Kimberly H., 196 AD2d 192).

The context in which defendant raises these arguments on appeal is somewhat confused, but, in any context, the “lack of evidence of duty” argument is unpreserved for appellate review (CPL 470.05 [2]). Although defendant joined in the motion to dismiss the indictment raising these arguments, any challenge to the sufficiency of the Grand Jury evidence “is not reviewable upon an appeal from an ensuing judgment of conviction based upon legally sufficient trial evidence” (CPL 210.30 [6]). To the extent that defendant’s arguments constitute a challenge to the legal sufficiency of the trial evidence, they also are unpreserved (see, People v Gray, 86 NY2d 10). At the conclusion of the People’s case, defense counsel’s motion for a trial order of dismissal did not raise the arguments now advanced on appeal.

[53]*53Furthermore, defendant suggests that his conviction should be reversed because the court’s charge to the jury was based upon “the inapt notions decided in the pre-trial decision that embraced concepts of duties to ‘contraparty’ traders that do not exist.” Again, however, any argument about the impropriety of the court’s charge in this regard is unpreserved as defense counsel proposed standard CJI instructions and made no complaints pertaining to the elements of the Penal Law charges.

Finally, for the first time in his reply brief, defendant suggests that, if this Court determines that his appellate arguments are unpreserved, he is entitled to relief based on the ineffective assistance of his trial counsel in failing to make appropriate objections. The People move to strike such argument from defendant’s reply brief. Defendant’s appellate counsel opposes on the ground that such argument is raised in response to the People’s non-preservation argument in their respondent’s brief and, in the alternative, cross-moves for coram nobis relief on the ground of her own ineffective assistance on appeal in not raising such argument in her main brief. Defendant’s arguments must be rejected both procedurally and on their merits, first, because they are improperly raised for the first time in his reply brief or are premature and, secondly, because it is clear that defense counsel’s trial representation overall, which included numerous challenges, was quite adequate. The record establishes that defendant received meaningful representation (see, People v Benevento, 91 NY2d 708, 713-715). We also decline to review these claims in the interest of justice. Were we to do so, we would find the evidence to be legally sufficient as to each conviction.

A jury’s verdict is supported by sufficient evidence if the evidence presented supports “any valid line of reasoning and permissible inferences which could lead a rational person to the conclusion reached by the jury” (People v Bleakley, 69 NY2d 490, 495). The jury was certainly warranted in finding defendant guilty of possession of stolen property, conspiracy and scheme to defraud based upon the proof establishing that he knowingly participated in an ongoing scheme to profit from material, nonpublic information obtained in violation of both Baridis’s fiduciary duty to Smith Barney, and, through Smith Barney, to the companies whose trust she also abused. As a result, defendant unlawfully obtained more than $50,000 in stolen property from the contraparties to those transactions.

Defendant suggests that under Federal law, which indisputably provides important precedent for courts of this State in [54]*54determining the obligations of persons who trade in securities, he had no duty to refrain from using the confidential information he obtained from Baridis, who was not a corporate insider. However, as the People argue at length, whether the facts of this case are analyzed under a “classical corporate insider” theory (Dirks v Securities & Exch. Commn.,

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
282 A.D.2d 49, 724 N.Y.S.2d 702, 2001 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 3620, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-napolitano-nyappdiv-2001.