NEW YORK (Reuters) - A former executive of SanDisk Corp was sentenced on Tuesday to a year of probation after admitting to supplying illegal tips to a hedge fund consultant.
Donald Barnetson, 39, pleaded guilty in February 2012 to a charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and securities fraud as part of a broad U.S. government crackdown on insider trading.
At a hearing in federal court in New York, U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood also ordered Barnetson to pay a $4,000 fine.
Barnetson was one of a number of defendants charged as part an insider trading investigation focused on expert networking firms, which connect high-end investors with industry experts.
Prosecutors said that Barnetson, a senior director at SanDisk, a maker of memory chips, had provided confidential information to a consultant who ran a research firm in Portland, Oregon.
The consultant, identified in court papers as John Kinnucan, obtained insider information about companies including SanDisk, F5 Networks Inc and Flextronics International, the documents said.
Kinnucan then sold the information to clients of his firm, Broadband Research LLC, including hedge funds and money managers, prosecutors said.
Barnetson provided confidential information about SanDisk and Apple Inc , one of the companies SanDisk supplied with electronic components.
Court documents said Barnetson told Kinnucan about SanDisk's anticipated revenues in July 2010. Barnetson in September 2010 also told Kinnucan about negotiations to settle a legal dispute between SanDisk and Apple, the papers said.
In exchange, Barnetson received the consultant's friendship, meals at high-end restaurants and confidential information about other technology companies, according to the charging documents.
Barnetson went on to cooperate in the investigation of Kinnucan, who garnered attention in 2010 by publicly refusing to cooperate with the federal government's insider trading probe.
Kinnucan ultimately pleaded guilty last year and was sentenced in January to more than four years in prison.
Barnetson becomes the 50th person to be sentenced since federal prosecutors in New York began filing a major wave of insider trading case in October 2009.
To date, 81 people have been charged and 73 have been convicted.
Peter Leeming, a lawyer for Barnetson, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The case is U.S. v. Barnetson, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 12-cr-00157.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond; Editing by Leslie Adler)
Posted: Jun 21, 2013 9:08 PM PST
By Nancy Yousef, Anchor
WAOW, North Central Wisconsin
?? Photo:? courtesy WAOW.com
ANTIGO (WAOW) - A bald eagle shot in the wing in Marathon County is now healing in Antigo.
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Wildlife officials say the eagle lost something important but is also gaining something in the process.
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About three weeks ago Marge Gibson of the Raptor Education Group in Antigo got a call about an injured bald eagle.
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"People found her in a field in Stratford and the bird was very quiet and stayed in a certain area," said Marge Gibson, Executive Director of the Raptor Education Group.
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Gibson says the female eagle was shot in the wing while flying. She fell a long way suffering serious injuries.
?"Look at that face isn't that amazing," said Gibson.
Fox Sports 1 will launch in August with the hopes of taking on ESPN in the 24-hour sports market. There's a lot of money to be made in cable sports, but competing directly with the World Wide Leader will be a tall order for the new Fox network.?
By Schuyler Velasco,?Staff writer / March 6, 2013
From left, Jay Glazer, Howie Long, Terry Bradshaw and Michael Strahan attend the Fox Sports Media Upfront party celebrating the new Fox Sports 1 network on Tuesday, March 5, 2013 in New York.
Charles Sykes/Invision/AP
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ESPN has been dominating the cable sports landscape for decades, but now it has some competition.?
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The Fox Sports Media group unveiled plans yesterday for Fox Sports 1, a 24-hour sports network meant to compete with Disney-owned behemoth ESPN and NBC Sports Network, which launched with middling success last year. Fox, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch?s NewsCorp, made the announcement at the company?s Up Fronts in New York, though many people had seen it coming well beforehand. (Fox Chief Operating Officer Eric Shanks even called it a ?poorly kept? secret in the official press announcement.)
Fox Sports 1 will launch in 90 million homes August 17, replacing the company-owned Speed channel. The initial programming will include college football and basketball, NASCAR, soccer, and UFC. ?There will also be a daily afternoon talk show hosted by Regis Philbin and a daily football show featuring the guys from FOX NFL Sunday.
?Fans are ready for an alternative to the establishment, and our goal for FS1 is to provide the best in-game experience possible, complemented by informative news, entertaining studio shows and provocative original programming,? Mr. Shanks said in the release.
?That?s how big ESPN is: In the sports world, Rupert Murdoch is the scrappy alternative,? quipped Deadspin.
Indeed, the release did seem to take specific aim at taking a piece of ESPN?s sizable cable sports pie. It?s shrewd move for the networks (there are also ?a 24-hour CBS sports channel) because the profit potential is huge. Sports programming is highly valuable in terms of advertising, because it?s one of the only things viewers still watch live on TV.? Second, cable companies pay hefty subscription fees to carry sports networks: according to research firm SNL Kagan, ESPN makes $5.54 for each household cable subscription (last year, the industry average was $0.20, according to Bloomberg). The network is set to earn over $7.31 billion in subscriber fees in 2014.
The Pentagon has released figures showing the impact of the plan to furlough over 700,000 civilian defense workers in order to deal with automatic budget cuts set to hit on March 1.
The plan, which would involve one furlough day a week from late April through the end of the fiscal year in September, would save $4.6 billion in the United States and another $265 million overseas, for a total of $4.86 billion.
States hit the hardest by the civilian defense worker furloughs are those that have a number of military facilities ? and are neighbors of Washington, D.C. as well.
Virginia would lose $660 millin in payroll through the furloughs; California is next at $419 million, followed by Maryland at $359 million.? Texas would lose payrolls valued at $290 million.
Here is the full state-by-state list as provided by the Pentagon:
?State
?Total FY2012 Payroll
?Est. of Furlough Impact
?Est FY2013 Payroll
?Alabama
?$2,174,475,440
-$183,994,076?
?$1,990,481,364
?Alaska
?$395,643,018
-$33,477,486?
$362,165,532?
?Arizona
?$654,272,851
-$55,361,549?
$598,911,302?
?Arkansas
?$231,472,474
-$19,586,132?
$211,886,342?
?California
?$4,960,293,753
-$419,717,164?
$4,540,576,589?
?Colorado
?$862,135,217
-$72,949,903?
$789,185,314?
?Connecticut
?$184,870,426
-$15,642,882?
$169,227,544?
?Delaware
?$99,088,346
-$8,384,398?
$90,703,947?
?District of Columbia
?$1,372,453,837
-$116,130,709?
$1,256,323,128?
?Florida
?$2,190,390,094
-$185,340,700?
$2,005,049,394?
?Georgia
?$2,400,446,142
-$203,114,674?
$2,197,331,468?
?Hawaii
?$1,632,436,375
-$138,129,232?
$1,494,307,143?
?Idaho
?$86,558,487
-$7,324,180?
$79,234,307?
?Illinois
?$1,040,094,515
-$88,007,997?
$952,086,518?
?Indiana
?$792,066,373
-$67,021,001?
$725,045,372?
?Iowa
?$91,236,256
-$7,719,991?
$83,516,265?
?Kansas
?$516,943,902
-$43,741,407?
$473,202,495?
?Kentucky
$663,377,945?
-$56,131,980?
$607,245,965?
?Louisiana
?$440,580,854
-$37,279,918?
$403,300,936?
?Maine
$486,683,721?
-$41,180,930?
$445,502,791?
?Maryland
?$4,246,163,841
-$359,290,787?
$3,886,873,054?
?Massachusetts
$531,725,827?
-$44,992,185?
$486,733,642?
?Michigan
?$818,499,422
-$69,257,643?
$749,241,779?
?Minnesota
?$148,795,573
-$12,590,395?
$136,205,178?
?Mississippi
?$596,325,787
-$50,458,336?
$545,867,451?
?Missouri
?$513,160,674
-$43,421,288?
$469,739,386?
?Montana
?$83,051,804
-$7,027,460?
$76,024,344?
?Nebraska
?$295,724,739
-$25,022,863?
$270,701,876?
?Nevada
?$143,069,768
-$12,105,903?
$130,963,865?
?New Hampshire
?$68,829,433
-$5,824,029?
$63,005,404?
?New Jersey
?$917,902,411
-$77,668,666?
$840,233,745?
?New Mexico
?$516,643,142
-$43,715,958?
$472,927,184?
?New York
?$774,644,655
-$65,546,855?
$709,097,800?
?North Carolina
?$1,429,023,635
-$120,917,385?
$1,308,106,251?
?North Dakota
?$97,200,891
-$8,224,691?
$88,976,200?
?Ohio
?$1,957,942,009
-$165,672,016?
$1,792,269,993?
?Oklahoma
?$1,527,654,499
-$129,263,073?
$1,398,391,426?
?Oregon
?$219,004,894
-$18,531,183?
$200,473,711?
?Pennsylvania
$1,830,965,501?
-$154,927,850?
$1,676,037,651?
?Rhode Island
$403,042,209?
-$34,103,572?
$368,938,637?
?South Carolina
$706,452,744?
-$59,776,771?
$646,675,973?
?South Dakota
$76,044,098?
-$6,434,501?
$69,609,597?
?Tennessee
$439,259,645?
-$37,168,124?
$402,091,521?
?Texas
$3,437,609,788?
-$290,874,674?
$3,146,735,114?
?Utah
$1,019,534,375?
-$86,268,293?
$933,266,082?
?Vermont
$35,597,711?
-$3,012,114?
$32,585,597?
?Virginia
$7,810,211,096?
-$660,864,016?
$7,149,347,080?
?Washington
$2,068,719,736?
-$175,045,516?
$1,893,674,220?
?West Virginia
$121,182,837?
-$10,253,932?
$110,928,905?
?Wisconsin
$153,615,884?
-$12,998,267?
$140,617,617?
?Wyoming
$64,215,124?
-$5,433,587?
$58,781,537?
?USA TOTAL
$54,327,333,778?
-$4,596,928,243?
$49,730,405,535?
?Overseas
$3,138,144,892?
-$265,535,337?
$2,872,609,555?
GRAND TOTAL
$57,465,478,670
-$4,862,463,580
$52,603,015,090
Source: Civilian Pay File, created by DMDC on 2/8/2013
About Jamie Dupree
Jamie Dupree is the Radio News Director of the Washington Bureau of the Cox Media Group and writes the Washington Insider blog.
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian accused the United States of applying double standards over Syria on Friday and blamed Washington for blocking a U.N. Security Council statement condemning a car bomb attack in Damascus.
The car bomb killed 53 people on Thursday on a busy highway, damaging nearby Russian embassy buildings in the Syrian capital.
"We are disappointed that, as a result of the United States' position at the United Nations Security Council, the terrorist act in Syria was not condemned," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a joint news conference after talks with China's foreign minister.
"We believe this is double standards and see in it a very dangerous tendency by our American colleagues to depart from the fundamental principle of unconditional condemnation of any terrorist act, a principle which secures the unity of the international community in the fight against terrorism.
Russia has used its status as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council to protect President Bashar al-Assad from three consecutive resolutions aimed at putting pressure on him to end the nearly two-year old conflict.
The United States has pushed for Assad's departure but Moscow says his removal must not be a pre-condition for any solution of the conflict.
(Reporting by Alessandra Prentice, Writing by Thomas Grove, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
