Durus Manager Gets Hard Time

Scott Sacane, the disgraced hedge fund manager who claimed to have mistakenly accumulated a controlling stake in a tiny biotech company, is going to jail.

A U.S. judge sentenced Sacane on Tuesday to three years in federal prison. Sacane pleaded guilty in December 2005 to charges that he manipulated shares of two small biotech companies, Esperion and Aksys, by failing to disclose that his hedge fund had purchased huge equity stakes in both companies.

Sacane's sentencing comes nearly four years after his hedge fund, once worth $500 million, belatedly disclosed that it had amassed a 77% ownership stake in Aksys, a dialysis machine manufacturer, and a 33% stake in Esperion, a drug manufacturer. ...