How to go from ethics awardee to $300K insider trading claims

investmentnews.com:

At the University of Tampa, Anthony Viggiano and three classmates faced off against another school in the 2018 “Ethics Invitational.” Hosted by the CFA Institute’s local branch, the competition tested which team could best tackle dilemmas they’d face as financial professionals.

Viggiano’s team won and walked off with a $1,000 prize. 

A few years later, on Wall Street, first at Blackstone Inc. and then at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Viggiano failed multiple ethical challenges, according to federal prosecutors, who charged him with being at the center of an insider trading scheme. 

According to the government, Viggiano, now 26, shared information about upcoming mergers and acquisitions with a pair of friends, pocketing a lot more than $1,000.

One friend, Christopher Salamone, 35, is from the same neighborhood in Baldwin, New York, where Viggiano grew up. The tips led to more than $300,000 in illicit gains, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors also charged Stephen Forlano, a college buddy, with trading on information provided by Viggiano. Forlano made approximately $114,000, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which filed a parallel civil suit.

Lawyers for all three men declined to comment for this story. Salamone pleaded guilty on Sept. 21 and is cooperating with prosecutors, the Justice Department said. Forlano’s lawyer said on Thursday that his client denied the allegations.

The alleged scheme started in the summer of 2021, when Viggiano was at Blackstone and learned that the firm was about to buy several assets from American International Group Inc. 

The first tips to Forlano paid off, but Viggiano hit a stumbling block. He resigned in October 2021, after six months at Blackstone. The firm had discovered