Robert M. Freeman (born ~1943) is an American stock broker and convicted felon who was a Goldman, Sachs & Co. partner. Freeman admitted to trading on inside information and pled guilty to

mail fraud Mail fraud and wire fraud are terms used in the United States to describe the use of a physical or electronic mail system to defraud another, and are federal crimes there. Jurisdiction is claimed by the federal government if the illegal activity ...

in 1989. The head of arbitrage at Goldman Sachs & Co., he was identified as a possible target in an insider trading scandal in November 1986, and arrested on February 12, 1987. The case was prosecuted by Rudolph Giuliani, then

United States Attorney United States attorneys are officials of the U.S. Department of Justice who serve as the chief federal law enforcement officers in each of the 94 U.S. federal judicial districts. Each U.S. attorney serves as the United States' chief federal ...

for the Southern District. According to the prosecutor, the case involved insider-trading information bought by

Ivan Boesky Ivan Frederick Boesky (born March 6, 1937) is a former American stock trader who became infamous for his prominent role in an insider trading scandal that occurred in the United States during the mid-1980s. He was charged and pled guilty to insi ...

from Martin A. Siegel, of Kidder, Peabody, who in turn got his information from Freeman. Freeman eventually pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud, served four months in

Federal Prison Camp, Pensacola The Federal Prison Camp, Pensacola (FPC Pensacola) is a minimum-security United States federal prison for male inmates in unincorporated Escambia County, Florida, near Pensacola. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the ...

at Saufley Field, Florida. On June 7, 1993, he agreed with the SEC to a three-year suspension from the securities industry and to surrender $1.1 million, in connection with the 1986 leveraged buyout of Beatrice Companies Inc. by

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts KKR & Co. Inc., also known as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., is an American global investment company that manages multiple alternative asset classes, including private equity, energy, infrastructure, real estate, credit, and, through its strate ...

. In 2011, ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' blogger William D. Cohan wrote that Freeman was an innocent victim of a prosecutorial "witch hunt," whose mail fraud conviction was unconnected to any insider trading. In reply, Seeking Alpha author Jonathan Bernstein described Freeman as a "guilty bystander" in the search for evidence against

and

Michael Milken Michael Robert Milken (born July 4, 1946) is an American financier. He is known for his role in the development of the market for high-yield bonds ("junk bonds"), and his conviction and sentence following a guilty plea on felony charges for vio ...

. According to Bernstein, Freeman's mail fraud conviction "was actually about insider trading".

References

1940s births Living people American financiers American Jews Criminals from New York (state) 20th-century American businesspeople People convicted of insider trading American fraudsters {{US-business-bio-1940s-stub