Jacob Bernstein, of The Daily Beast reports, ‘Uma Thurman stopped a $30M Ponzi Scheme’

Today’s criminal complaint against financial adviser-to-the-stars Kenneth Starr contains several anonymous clients who were allegedly defrauded by him and his firm. The identity of clients and victims alike has become an instant guessing game in New York and Hollywood.

As reporters scramble around the Manhattan courthouse trying to piece together this fast-moving story, sources familiar with Starr and his clients have filled in some of the blanks: “client number two” in the criminal complaint is an “actress” who marched into Starr’s offices on April 26 demanding to know where $1 million of her money had gone. Within a day, the money had been returned to her, but the feds allege that it was not her money being paid back to her. Rather, it was the money of “client number three”—a former talent agent executive and his wife.”

The actress is none other than Uma Thurman, according to several sources close to her. The talent agent is strongly believed to be Jim Wiatt, the former head of William Morris—and another client of Starr’s firm—according to other entertainment industry insiders, though the Daily Beast could not confirm this. Read The Rest at The Daily Beast

AND..

Arthur J. Samberg & hedge fund firm Pequot Capital Management cough an easy 28 Million to settle the Insider Trading case. ..

By Svea Herbst-Bayliss and Rachelle Younglai

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Defunct hedge fund firm Pequot Capital Management and its former chief executive officer, Arthur Samberg, have agreed to pay $28 million to settle insider trading allegations, U.S. regulators said Thursday.

The Securities and Exchange Commission accused Pequot and Samberg of using inside information from a Microsoft Corp employee whom they were in the process of hiring.

Separately, the SEC brought an enforcement action against the former Microsoft employee, David Zilkha, for allegedly tipping off Pequot and Samberg. Zilkha has 20 days to respond.

The settlement follows a protracted congressional and SEC investigation into Pequot, which invested $15 billion at its peak and ranked as one of the most successful hedge funds.

U.S. senators had accused the SEC of closing the Pequot investigation and firing an SEC enforcement employee because the probe got too close to a powerful Wall Street banker.

Samberg surprised investors and employees last year when he announced plans to shut down his lucrative business, saying he was preoccupied by the reopened investigation.

The settlement comes as U.S. regulators crack down hard on insider trading and seven months after former hedge fund firm Galleon Group’s founder was arrested.

“We are continuing to hold hedge fund managers accountable when they engage in insider trading,” David Bergers, the head of the SEC’s Boston office, said in a telephone interview.

According to the SEC complaint, Samberg sought information from the former Microsoft employee, Zilkha, who had accepted an offer to work at Pequot.

“I’m not as impressed with our research on msft. Do you have any current views that could be helpful? Might as well pick your brain before you go on the payroll!!” Samberg wrote in a February 2001 email to Zilkha confirming that he sent out the offer letter, according to the SEC complaint.

In April, while Zilkha was employed at Microsoft, Samberg e-mailed Zilkha and said he owned some Microsoft shares despite indications that the company could reduce its financial forecasts, and asked Zilkha for any “tidbits.”

Zilkha told Samberg that he would get back to him on “MSFT ASAP.”

Zilkha got information that Microsoft would meet or beat its quarterly earnings estimates and then passed that information on to Samberg, the SEC said.

Using the information, Samberg traded Microsoft’s shares on behalf of funds managed by Pequot and reaped more than $14 million in illegal profits, the SEC alleged. Read The Rest VIA CNN Money