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Rep. Christopher Collins, a Republican from New York who was an early supporter of Donald Trump’s presidential run, is pleading guilty to insider trading.
The congressman was charged last year with trading on non-public information about Innate Immunotherapeutics Ltd., an Australian biotechnology company. He was arrested in August 2018 along with his son, Cameron Collins, and Stephen Zarsky, the father of Cameron’s fiancee.
Collins, who claimed that seizures of evidence from his staff by law enforcement authorities had violated his constitutional rights, is scheduled to change his plea to guilty in federal court in Manhattan on Tuesday, according to court documents. His son and Zarsky are scheduled to plead guilty on Thursday.
James Margolin, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Geoffrey Berman, declined to comment on the planned guilty pleas. Lawyers for the three defendants didn’t immediately return calls seeking comment.
A judge ruled this month against a request by Collins to review materials he said would show that investigators breached a constitutional provision limiting official inquiries into legislative matters. He’d moved to appeal the ruling, claiming that the evidence seizures violated the Speech or Debate Clause, which protects members of Congress from arrest and prosecution based on their political views.
The three defendants were scheduled to go to trial Feb. 3.
Collins was the first member of Congress to endorse Trump in the 2016 election.
The case is U.S. v. Collins, 18-cr-567, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
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