BUSINESS/CONGRESS/GOP/LEGAL/NEW YORK/TRUMP PEOPLE: “Christopher Collins, a Republican U.S. congressman from New York who was one of President Donald Trump’s earliest supporters, was criminally charged on Wednesday [8-8-18] with taking part in an insider trading scheme involving an Australian biotechnology company on whose board he served. The indictment came as Collins, 68, was seeking a fourth two-year term in November’s elections, where Democrats hope to recapture the House of Representatives…Two lawyers for Collins, Jonathan Barr and Jonathan New, said in a statement that they were confident he would be ‘completely vindicated and exonerated.’ The indictment charged Collins, his son Cameron, and Stephen Zarsky, the father of Cameron Collins’ fiancée, with securities fraud, wire fraud and other crimes…The case relates to Innate Immunotherapeutics Ltd (IIL.AX), where Christopher Collins sat on the board and held a 16.8 percent stake. Prosecutors said that in June 2017, while attending the congressional picnic at the White House, Collins learned in an email from Innate’s chief executive that a trial for its proposed secondary multiple sclerosis drug MIS416 had failed. According to the indictment, Collins immediately called his son and told him the news. Cameron Collins in turn told his fiancée, her parents and a friend, and Stephen Zarsky went on to tip his brother, his sister and a friend, the indictment said.”
–Brendan Pierson, Jonathan Stempel, “U.S. Congressman Collins, son charged with insider trading,” Reuters, August 8, 2018 6:35 am