Selection of a 12-member jury from a 100-member pool began on Tuesday at the insider trading trial of Michael S. Steinberg, a former SAC Capital Advisors portfolio manager.
Dressed conservatively in a slightly wrinkled grey suit, white shirt and blue tie, the 40-year-old Mr. Steinberg appeared confident as he stood at the defense table, flanked by three of his lawyers, including the lead lawyer, Barry H. Berke. With his hands in his pockets, he swayed from side to side and occasionally flashed a smile as he waited for Judge Richard J. Sullivan to enter the courtroom at the federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan.
The trial of Mr. Steinberg is at the center of a multiyear investigation by the Justice Department into insider trading at SAC Capital. Six of the hedge fund’s traders have pleaded guilty to securities fraud and, nearly two weeks ago, the firm agreed to pay $1.2 billion and plead guilty to five counts of insider trading violations.
Mr. Steinberg, the most senior former employee at SAC Capital to be charged, has been accused of trading the stocks of technology companies like Dell after receiving confidential information about their earnings. He is the first former SAC employee to stand trial and prosecutors hope his case will shine a light on the culture that existed at the hedge fund.
Two assistant United States attorneys, Antonia Apps and Harry Chernoff, are trying the case for the government and were joined on Tuesday by an F.B.I. special agent, John Radzicki.
At 10:45 a.m., jury candidates filtered through the wood and marble-paneled room on the third floor of the courthouse to take their seats in the gallery. By early afternoon, the first pool of 34 candidates had been questioned. Of those, 18 were seated in the jury box to Judge Sullivan’s left.
Among the 70 questions on a list, Judge Sullivan asked each potential juror whether he or she had heard, read or seen reports in the media about Mr. Steinberg, the charges against him or the case generally. Five members of the group raised their hands.
Potential jurors were also asked whether they had seen media reports about Steven A. Cohen, the hedge fund’s founder. To this question, one man said he had read about the sale of some of Mr. Cohen’s art at Christie’s and Sotheby’s auctions last week.
The first group of potential jurors was a mixed lot, including one Occupy Wall Street member and people who had themselves been investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Many in the pool disclosed that they had ties to Wall Street. Two said they were employed or had been employed by a hedge fund, while one man said he was the head of a small investment bank and a handful of people gave the details of their indirect ties to the financial world. One woman said she had once worked for Julian Robertson, the founder of the hedge fund Tiger Management, and one man told the judge his friend’s daughter was dating a compliance officer at SAC Capital.
At one point, when the potential jurors were given the opportunity to say whether they had strong views about Wall Street, a young juror raised his hand and said he was affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Many of the questions reflected the tedium of the administrative process as Judge Sullivan went through all manner of questions to determine any biases among the jurors. There was a comic moment when one juror, a tax lawyer, said he had strong views about the Internal Revenue Service. “That’s a shocker,†Judge Sullivan shot back.
Within the group, two jurors had been investigated by the S.E.C., while the juror who said his friend’s daughter was dating an SAC employee said he had a very strong bias against the commission.
This afternoon, Judge Sullivan is taking some of the first pool of jurors into a separate room to discuss some of their disclosures while a new pool of jurors will questioned in the main courtroom.
