Closing arguments begin in Martoma trial

NEW YORK — Former SAC Capital portfolio manager Mathew Martoma conspired to get secret drug-trial data and then use it for lucrative insider trading, the government charged Monday in closing arguments of the closely-watched criminal case.

Martoma cultivated relationships with two doctors who were privy to key results of the drug testing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Eugene Ingoglia said during a roughly 1 hour and 45 minute statement before a federal courtroom packed with spectators.

The doctors' knowledge provided Martoma, 39, with the proverbial "canary in a coal mine" — advance notice of secret information not available to other investors, said Ingoglia.

Closing the government's case, Ingoglia led jurors through what he termed an "avalanche of evidence" that proved Martoma's involvement in the most lucrative insider trading case in history.

"The evidence in this case leads to one and only one conclusion: That Mathew Martoma is guilty as charged."

Defense attorneys were scheduled to give their closing argument Monday afternoon. Judge Paul Gardephe is then expected to instruct the panel on the law before deliberations.

The nearly month-long trial focused on allegations that Martoma developed relationships with the doctors, Joel Ross and Sidney Gilman, involved in clinical testing of an Alzheimer's disease drug being developed by pharmaceutical firms Elan and Wyeth.

Ross and Gilman testifying under non-prosecution agreements said they illegally gave Martoma non-public information in 2008 about disappointing results from the tests.

Martoma allegedly relayed the information to SAC Capital chief Steven Cohen before Elan and Wyeth publicly disclosed the data. The government charges that the giant hedge fund then dumped its roughly $700 million stake in the drug firms' stocks, reaping approximately $276 million in combined losses and avoided losses.

Martoma's defense team strategy largely focused on trying to characterize Gilman, Ross and other prosecution ! witnesses as unreliable. The defense also presented evidence intended to show that any data Martoma got from the doctors was already public. Additionally, the defense contended Martoma had no role in SAC's selling of the pharmaceutical stocks.

Martoma did not testify in his own defense.