SAC Capital's Michael Steinberg is not the individual the FBI asked expert consultant John Kinnucan to record, says Kinnucan, contradicting a December 7th report in the Wall Street Journal.
The huge insider investigation underway has named (marred) only a few individuals at some of the 12 firms subpoenaed by the FBI.
Broadband Research's John Kinnucan was the first, because after he was asked to wear a wire by the FBI, he refused, and sent an email to everyone the FBI had asked him about his connections to. (To read the email click here.)
The email was reported in the Wall Street Journal on a Friday evening and the FBI's investigation took off - three hedge funds were raided the following Monday.
Since then, every time a new name is dragged into the investigation, it sets off a number of news wires buzzing about who's next. Yesterday, we were one of them.
We read in the WSJ that John Kinnucan was asked to record Michael Steinberg, a current employee of Steve Cohen's SAC Capital (at Sigma, which is a subsidiary of SAC) and the first portfolio manager to be named in the current investigation, and since everyone thinks the FBI is going after SAC Capital (and/or its many affiliated funds), Steinberg seemed like a good fit, so we wrote about it.
(The other names we've gotten are "experts." We know there are portfolio managers involved, and that that's largely why funds like Diamondback have gotten subpoenaed, but their names are unknown.)
But Michael Steinberg is not the individual the FBI asked Kinnucan to record, he says.
Kinnucan told us this morning, "It's not Steinberg, nor is it anyone at SAC."
Kinnucan says he doesn't want anyone's to be unfairly tarnished, so for the record, he says, it's not him.
(He won't tell us who it is. "That would be an obstruction of justice," he says.)
Obviously, this doesn't clear SAC Capital or Michael Steinberg. SAC Capital has been subpoenaed by the FBI and Steinberg could very well be under investigation. He just wasn't who the FBI asked Kinnucan to record with a wire.
For the complete list of who's been named in the investigation, click here >
