Talks Could Avert 3rd Trial for Quattrone

Lawyers for former star investment banker Frank Quattrone and U.S. prosecutors are in talks that may avoid the need for a third trial for obstruction and witness tampering charges, according to a summary of a letter on the U.S. District Court electronic filing system.

A brief summary of a letter sent to Judge George Daniels from one of Quattrone’s lawyers, and posted on the court’s website Monday, said Quattrone and his attorneys were “involved in a dialogue that possibly could avoid the need for a third trial for this matter....”

Lawyers for Quattrone declined to comment on the contents of the letter or provide a copy. A government spokeswoman was not immediately available to comment.

On March 20, a federal appeals court threw out Quattrone’s 2004 conviction and granted him a new trial, citing erroneous jury instructions by U.S. District Judge Richard Owen.

Owen had sentenced Quattrone to 18 months in prison after a New York jury in May 2004 found him guilty of two counts of obstruction of justice and one count of witness tampering. Quattrone’s lawyers had argued that the trial was rife with errors.

Quattrone formerly headed Credit Suisse First Boston’s Silicon Valley Global Technology Group. The government’s case against him centered on an e-mail he forwarded in December 2000, urging colleagues to “clean up those files” at a time when Credit Suisse was facing probes into its allocation of shares in initial public offerings.

In 2003, a jury deadlocked in Quattrone’s first trial.