Federal prosecutors have reached a settlement to eventually drop criminal charges against a former Centerview Partners LLC investment banker who was accused of participating in an international insider-trading ring and has been living in her native Thailand for years.
In 2019, Darina Windsor and her then live-in boyfriend in London, Benjamin Taylor, were accused of passing inside information on 22 companies from late 2012 to early 2018. Prosecutors claimed the pair, who referred to each other as “Pops” and “Popsy” in emails, made more than $1 million from the scheme.
According to a deferred prosecution agreement, securities fraud charges will be dropped against Windsor in a year as long as she follows through on an pledge to pay $100,000 to the US Securities and Exchange Commission and stays out of legal trouble. Her settlement includes $50,000 in alleged trading profits and $50,000 in penalties.
Windsor, who left London and has lived in Thailand since before the charges were made public, pleaded not guilty Thursday during an unusual video hearing in Manhattan federal court before US District Judge Denise Cote.
“She is not in custody and there is no prospect of her being in custody,” Assistant US Attorney Andrew Thomas said at the hearing.
Centerview spokesman Dana Cimilluca said Windsor was fired a decade ago for misconduct. “Maintaining our clients’ confidentiality is paramount and something we are focused on every day,” Cimilluca said in an email.
Windsor and Taylor were both swept up in an criminal case that alleged a broad scheme to pass inside tips on deals to a ring that operated in the US, UK, France, Switzerland, Greece, Israel and Hong Kong. Several people, including an ex-Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker, were convicted in the case.
Taylor, who worked in London for Moelis & Co., is scheduled to plead guilty in June to a single count of conspiracy. In exchange, prosecutors will seek a sentence no longer than a year and a day behind bars, which would be reduced by the two months he served in a Monaco jail after his initial 2018 arrest.
Former Swiss trader Marc Demane Debih, who was at the center of the ring and later admitted making $70 million from the scheme, reached a cooperation deal with US authorities. He helped convict other members of the ring, including former Goldman banker Bryan Cohen. Sentenced during the pandemic, Cohen was given one year of home confinement.
The case is US v. Taylor, 18-cr-184, US District Court, Southern District of New York .
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