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Prison in Insider Trading Case

Former Representative Chris Collins (R-NY) has been sentenced to more than two years in prison in an insider trading case, the New York Times reports.

Collins resigned his seat and pleaded guilty in October to passing along to his son confidential information he learned as a board member of the Australian biotechnology firm Innate Immunotherapeutics. While at a congressional picnic, Collins learned that a drug trial Innate was conducting had failed, news he told his son, as the Washington Post reported at the time. This, it added, enabled him and others to avoid more than $700,000 in losses.

A federal judge has now sentenced Collins to 26 months in prison and to pay a $200,000 fine, the Times reports. "What I've done has marked me for life," Collins said. "I stand here today as a disgraced former member of Congress that will have that asterisk by my name."

Cameron Collins and his fiancée's father, Stephen Zarsky, also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud and are to be sentenced next week, according to the Times.

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