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Chris Collins Won a 4th House Term While Indicted. Can He Avoid a Prison Term?

NEW YORK — Rep. Chris Collins had told so many people, from fellow House members to friends and relatives, about a surefire investment: a little-known Australian drug company that was developing a treatment for multiple sclerosis.

Chris Collins Won a 4th House Term While Indicted. Can He Avoid a Prison Term?

But on an early summer’s day in 2017, Collins learned that a critical trial for the experimental drug had failed. He was nearly dumbstruck.

He quickly set out to reach his son, Cameron Collins, to warn him of the bad news. The congressman called repeatedly, finally reaching him from the White House lawn on his seventh try, divulging information that was not public.

That call, which lasted 6 minutes and 8 seconds, and the warning the congressman delivered, set in motion a chain of events that led to the indictment of both men, the unraveling of the congressman’s career and the likelihood that he will be sentenced to prison by a federal judge in Manhattan on Friday.

Collins, 69, rose to prominence after he became the first sitting member of Congress to endorse Donald Trump, a fellow Republican, in the 2016 campaign, and emerged as one of his most ardent supporters.

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He pleaded guilty Oct. 1 to providing nonpublic information to his son, allowing him to avoid hundreds of thousands of dollars in financial losses. Collins also admitted that he had lied to the FBI about the scheme.

Collins’ lawyers, citing what they said was their client’s long history of public service, have asked the judge, Vernon Broderick of U.S. District Court, to sentence Collins to probation, combined with a substantial period of home detention and extensive community service.

But the office of Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, has sought a sentence of close to five years, arguing that Collins “came to embody the cynical idea that those in power who make the laws are not required to follow them.”

Collins, a wealthy entrepreneur who was first elected to Congress in 2012 from the 27th District in Western New York, was narrowly reelected for a fourth term in 2018, months after he was indicted, after initially saying he would abandon his reelection bid and suspending his campaign.

He resigned his seat Sept. 30 last year and pleaded guilty the next day to charges of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and making false statements. He faced a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

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Even before his indictment, Collins’ ties to the Australian firm, Innate Immunotherapeutics, had raised ethical questions in Congress, where he sat on a House committee with jurisdiction over health care companies.

Collins was a member of Innate’s board of directors and owned nearly 17% of its stock, a federal indictment said.

According to the indictment, Collins was attending the annual Congressional Picnic on the South Lawn of the White House on June 22, 2017, when he received an email from Simon Wilkinson, chief executive of Innate.

Wilkinson’s email, sent to Collins and other board members, reported that an experimental multiple sclerosis drug called MIS416 that the firm was developing had failed the clinical trial — “extremely bad news,” Wilkinson wrote in the email, according to the indictment.

The indictment said Collins responded, “Wow. Makes no sense. How are these results even possible???”

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“I was devastated by that news, in thinking about the multiple sclerosis patients we would not be able to treat,” Collins said in court when he pleaded guilty. “I was in a very emotional state at that moment in time and I called my son Cameron.”

By selling Innate stock before news of the failed drug trial became public several days later, Cameron Collins, 27, avoided loses of about $570,000, prosecutors said. He also passed the information to others, including his fiancee’s father, Stephen Zarsky, 67, who avoided losses of about $144,000, the government said.

Cameron Collins and Zarsky, who also were indicted, each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and both are to be sentenced next week.

Broderick, in one of more than two dozen questions he posed this week to prosecutors and Chris Collins’ lawyers as he prepared for the sentencing, asked how the argument that Collins had “committed an emotional and impulsive act” could be “reconciled with his lying to law enforcement approximately 10 months later.”

The judge also asked whether during Collins’ 2018 reelection campaign, he had made any statements “professing his innocence in advertisements, press conferences or elsewhere.”

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Several of Collins’ former congressional colleagues wrote to the judge on his behalf, including John Boehner, the former Republican speaker of the House, and Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y. The court also received scores of letters from Collins’ former constituents and others, most opposing leniency.

The government, in arguing for a stiff sentence, placed Collins’ assets at more than $13.8 million, which included a baseball card collection and a coin collection each worth more than $1 million.

“Collins could have ameliorated any concern he had that Cameron would lose money in Innate by simply gifting Cameron money,” prosecutors wrote, adding that his illegal act was totally gratuitous.

“Collins committed a financial crime without having any financial need,” prosecutors said.

Collins’ wealth no longer stems from his interests in Innate Immunotherapeutics. The company changed its name to Amplia Therapeutics in September 2018 and now trades at a nickel a share.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times .

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