New York Rep. Chris Collins indicted on insider trading charges

The case is related to Innate Immunotherapeutics, an Australian biotech company, on which the elder Collins served on the board.

Chris Collins, a Republican congressman from upstate New York, surrendered to the FBI on Wednesday morning on securities fraud-related charges, federal prosecutors said.

Collins, 68, faces insider trading charges along with his son, Cameron Collins, and Stephen Zarsky, the father of Cameron Collins’ fiancée, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York.

The case is related to Innate Immunotherapeutics, an Australian biotech company, on which the elder Collins served on the board. He also is one of the firm’s biggest shareholders, owning nearly 17 percent of the stock, which is traded on the Australian Securities Exchange and in the United States on the over-the-counter market.

According to a grand jury’s indictment, Collins in June 2017 passed along material that was nonpublic to his son so that “could use that information to make timely trades in Innate stock and tip others” regarding the results of a drug trial that was supposed to treat a form of multiple sclerosis.

The drug trial had failed — and Innate’s stock would eventually tumble by 92 percent.

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