A Trader, an F.B.I. Witness, and Then a Suicide

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In a Manhattan courtroom last week, federal prosecutors played for a jury a secretly recorded telephone conversation between two Wall Street traders exchanging stock tips.

Two days later, one of those traders, Ephraim G. Karpel, hanged himself in his Fifth Avenue office, according to a law enforcement official.

Mr. Karpel was never charged with any wrongdoing, and until last week his name had not emerged in connection with the government’s vast investigation of insider trading.

Yet while working for a New York commodities firm, he had agreed in 2008 to cooperate with federal authorities, and for about a year he taped conversations with fellow traders, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter who insisted on anonymity to discuss it.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/06/02/a-trader-an-f-b-i-witness-and-then-a-suicide/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha25