Stockbroker Gets 8-Month Term on Insider Trading

Former stockbroker Peter Brant, who used information leaked by a Wall Street Journal reporter to reap $700,000 in illegal profits on stock trades, was sentenced today to eight months in prison and fined $10,000.

Brant, 35, was the key government witness in the insider trading trial of R. Foster Winans, who was found guilty of passing pre-publication information about companies featured in the Journal’s influential “Heard on the Street” column to the former Kidder Peabody & Co. broker.

Brant, of Palm Beach, Fla., pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and two counts of security fraud for his part in the scheme to trade issues of 24 companies that would be covered in the column, written by Winans and others.

U.S. District Judge Charles Stewart will allow Brant to serve his eight-month sentence over 120 weekends and ordered him to perform 750 hours of community service.