NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ—On October 23, Robert Ramnarine, a former executive from Bristol-Meyer and Squibb was sentenced to 366 days in prison for insider trading.
Ramnarine had inside knowledge of his employer’s planned acquisition of Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc, a public company, along with other potential acquisitions such as ZymoGenetics and Pharmasset Inc.
Ramnarine, a forty-six year old resident from East Brunswick, NJ, plead guilty to illegally trading stock options and securities fraud, lessening his sentence from twenty years to just a year and one day.
“In addition to the jail term,” stated the Wall Street Journal, “Mr. Ramnarine also was sentenced to two years of supervised release and fined $10,000, according to the Justice Department.”
Ramnarine also forfeited $324,777 to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, according to the Department of Justice.
Once a high-level executive in the treasury department of Bristol-Myers and Squibb, Ramnarine was employed by the company since 1977 and held several administrative positions, until his arrest in August 2012.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, he held upper level positions, such as executive director of Pensions and Saving Investments and assistant treasurer of Capital Markets, both of which required evaluating potential companies that Bristol-Myers-Squibb was interesting in acquiring.
His positions with the company also forbade him from using the confidential information for his own personal gains.
The investigation into Ramnarine’s trading was led by the FBI and eventually folded into a nationwide initiative led by the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force, created by President Barack Obama in November 2009 to wage an aggressive campaign against financial crimes within the corporate sector.
Charlie is the founder and editor of New Brunswick Today, and the winner of the Awbrey Award for Community-Oriented Local Journalism. He is a proud Rutgers University journalism graduate, a community organizer, and a former independent candidate for mayor of New Brunswick.
