August 8, 2018: Congressman Chris Collins & Son Arrested for Insider Trading

 

8/8/18: Speaking of courts, Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY), the first member of Congress to endorse Trump for president gets handcuffed and hauled to jail. Collins, who sat on the health subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, just so happened to be a major investor in an Australian company, Innate Immunotherapeutics Limited. Innate had one product, MIS416, an experimental drug for treating multiple sclerosis. Collins not only sat on a committee that might help the drug win FDA approval, he sat on the company board. 

The keen-eyed observer is probably thinking: This sounds like a conflict of interest! That’s because it is. 

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Collins nearly choked on his baked beans.

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On June 22, 2017, prosecutors allege, Collins was attending a picnic (at the White House, no less) when he got a call from someone with the company. MIS416 had failed a clinical trial. 

The “value” of the drug was essentially zero.

Crap! This stuff is useless.

 

Collins nearly choked on his baked beans. He had to decide. What should a congressman with inside information do? Take his lumps? Or get someone else to take them? He called his son seven times in five minutes. Six calls went to voicemail. The seventh went through. Brief conversation followed. 

On the morning of June 23, Cameron Collins, his son, sold 500 shares of Innate. Over the course of the next few days he placed 53 sell orders. Cameron’s fiancée, Lauren Zarsky, sold her shares. So did her father, Stephen Zarsky. Mr. Zarsky’s wife, daughter and brother dumped Innate. 

Mr. Zarsky alone avoided $144,000 in losses and stuck some unwitting chump, without insider info. Cameron Collins dodged $570,000 in losses as Innate fell in five days by more than 90 percent. Both have been charged in the insider trading scheme. 

Rep. Collins has been freed on promise to post $500,000 bond. Meanwhile, he has assured constituents you can’t keep a good congressman down. Stock prices? Yes. But not Chris Collins, who you should vote for in November, if you want him to help President Trump drain the swamp! (See: 10/8/19, for Collins’ guilty plea.)