Mathew Martoma (born May 18, 1974, as Ajai Mathew Mariamdani Thomas)
is an American former
hedge fund
A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that trades in relatively liquid assets and is able to make extensive use of more complex trading, portfolio-construction, and risk management techniques in an attempt to improve performance, such as sho ...
trader. As a portfolio manager at
S.A.C. Capital Advisors, he was accused of generating possibly the largest single
insider trading
Insider trading is the trading of a public company's stock or other securities (such as bonds or stock options) based on material, nonpublic information about the company. In various countries, some kinds of trading based on insider information ...
transaction profit in history at a value of $276 million.
A jury convicted him, and in November 2014 he began serving a nine-year prison sentence. He was incarcerated at
FCI Miami
The Federal Correctional Institution, Miami (FCI Miami) is a low-security United States federal prison for male inmates in Florida. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), a division of the United States Department of Justice. The i ...
as inmate 01138-104, and released early on 19 July 2021.
Early life
Martoma was born in Michigan and grew up in
Merritt Island, Florida
Merritt Island is a peninsula, commonly referred to as an island, in Brevard County, Florida, United States, located on the eastern Floridian coast, along the Atlantic Ocean. It is also the name of an unincorporated town in the central and so ...
. His mother, Lizzie, is a doctor and his father, Bobby (formerly Cochukattil Thomas),
owns a dry cleaning and laundry company. Both are immigrants from India.
He graduated from
Merritt Island High School
Merritt Island High School is a public high school located in Merritt Island, Florida. It was built in 1965.
Principals
#Robert Bruton: 1965 - 1983
#Hank Smith: 1983 - 1999
#David M. Piccolo: 2000 - 2002
#Gary Shiffrin: 2002 - 2013
#Dr. Karyle G ...
in 1992. He graduated from
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
and then attended
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States.
Each class ...
but was expelled in 1999
for grade manipulation and dishonesty.
He had used computer software to create a fake transcript with better grades which he then sent to federal judges in an attempt to secure a clerkship. After leaving Harvard, he legally changed his name from Ajai Mathew Thomas to Mathew Cochukattil Martoma in 2001.
He then applied and was accepted to
Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he received an
MBA
A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...
in 2003.
After Martoma's trial, where it was revealed that he had been expelled from Harvard but did not disclose that to Stanford, Stanford took back his degree for being admitted under false pretenses.
Martoma worked as a portfolio manager at
S.A.C. Capital Advisors.
He was hired in 2006 after working for three years at Sirios Capital Management. Martoma owned a $2 million mansion in
Boca Raton. This residence was forfeited as part of Martoma's sentencing.
Trial
According to the criminal complaint filed by the U.S. Department of Justice, Martoma allegedly advised
Steven A. Cohen to sell shares of pharmaceutical companies
Wyeth
Wyeth, LLC was an American pharmaceutical company. The company was founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1860 as ''John Wyeth and Brother''. It was later known, in the early 1930s, as American Home Products, before being renamed to Wyeth in ...
and
Elan Corporation
Elan or Élan may refer to:
People
* Elan Atias (born 1975), American singer-songwriter
* Elán (musician) (born 1983), Mexican singer
* Poets of Elan, a group of Ecuadorian poets
Fictional characters
* Elan (Order of the Stick), a character in ...
based on tips from two doctors, including
Sid Gilman of the
University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
,
about the
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...
drug
bapineuzumab during clinical trials overseen by the
FDA
The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a federal agency of the Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the control and supervision of food ...
. Martoma pleaded not guilty to formal charges of securities fraud, two counts, and conspiracy which resulted in $276 million in profits for SAC Capital in 2008. The insider trading trial began on January 9, 2014 in the
. A jury of seven women and five men were selected to evaluate the evidence in a courtroom presided by U.S. District Judge
Paul Gardephe
Paul G. Gardephe (born October 17, 1957) is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Education and career
Born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, Gardephe received a Bachelor of Arts d ...
.
On February 6, 2014, Martoma was found guilty on all charges.
On September 8, 2014, Martoma was sentenced to 9 years in prison. In addition Martoma must forfeit his $9.38 million bonus which he earned in 2008.
In August 2017, a divided panel of the
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (in case citations, 2d Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. Its territory comprises the states of Connecticut, New York and Vermont. The court has appellate juri ...
upheld the conviction. In June 2018, the again divided panel issued an amended opinion reaching the same result. On June 3, 2019, the
Supreme Court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
declined to hear Martoma's case, leaving his sentence in place.
He is scheduled to be released in July 2021.
Personal life
Martoma is married to Dr. Rosemary A. Martoma (née Kurian), a
pediatrician; the couple have three children.
See also
*
Chip Skowron
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, hedge fund portfolio manager convicted of insider trading
References
External links
Historic Insider Trading Scheme - Stock Manager Busted FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
The Empire of Edge2014 ''New Yorker'' article by
Patrick Radden Keefe
Patrick Radden Keefe (born 1976) is an American writer and investigative journalist. He is the author of five books—''Chatter,'' ''The Snakehead,'' '' Say Nothing,'' '' Empire of Pain,'' and ''Rogues''—and has written extensively for many pub ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Martoma, Mathew
Duke University alumni
Stanford Graduate School of Business alumni
American hedge fund managers
People convicted of insider trading
People from Boca Raton, Florida
1974 births
Living people
People who fabricated academic degrees
People from Merritt Island, Florida
American people of Indian descent
Saint Thomas Christians