Inside Trader Gets Year in Prison

Ira B. Sokolow, a former vice president of Shearson Lehman Bros. Inc., was sentenced to a year in prison today for his part in an insider trading scheme that netted millions in illegal profits for Dennis B. Levine, a former Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc. managing director.

Sokolow, 32, pleaded guilty Sept. 4 to securities fraud and tax evasion. He received about $120,000 for tipping Levine to more than a dozen mergers that were still secret. Levine made $4 million on the tips. Sokolow, of several brokers involved in the scam to be sentenced, appeared before Judge John Keenan in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.