'Octopussy' Trader Gets 10 Years in Prison to Send Message to Wall Street

Judge says harsh sentence--one of the longest ever for insider trading -- is necessary

Zvi Goffer, the New York stock trader nicknamed "Octopussy" for his many tipsters, was sentenced to 10 years in prison Wednesday, the Associated Press' Larry Neumeister reports. U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan also ordered Goffer to pay $10 million in restitution and said his sentence was meant to send a message to Wall Street. "Insider trading is very, very hard to detect, and because of that has to be dealt with harshly," Sullivan said. "These crimes are not going to be tolerated, certainly not in my courtroom."

The trader was convicted with two others in a two-week trial in June for arranging to pay two Manhattan lawyers almost $100,000 in return for inside info in 2007 and 2008. "Goffer was among more than two dozen people convicted in what prosecutors called the biggest hedge fund insider trading case in history," Neumeister reports.

Goffer's wife began sobbing when she heard the sentence handed down to her 34-year-old husband. Neumeister says it's one of the longest ever for someone convicted of insider trading. "You gambled and you lost," Sullivan told Goffer, according to Reuters' Basil Katz.