NYC witness: Getting stock secrets was easy

NEW YORK – A government witness has testified at a New York City insider trading trial that it wasn't difficult to get contacts to divulge illegal secrets.

Former hedge fund portfolio manager Noah Freeman says all he had to do was ask for the secrets when he found somebody willing to compromise their ethics and risk being prosecuted.

He testified on Monday at the trial of Winifred Jiau (jow). Jiau was arrested in December on insider trading charges in a government crackdown targeting people in the securities industry who pass off illegal secrets as legitimate research. Her trial began last week.

Freeman said he began getting secret information from Jiau in 2006 when she worked at a computer chip company in Taiwan.