NY Court Upholds Conviction of Fremont “Poohster”

NEW YORK (AP) - A New York appeals court has upheld the conviction of a California finance researcher who used code words like ''recipes,'' ''cooks'' and ''sugar'' to disguise an insider trading scheme.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan on Wednesday rejected various arguments made by Winifred Jiau .

The Fremont woman was convicted in June 2011 of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud, specifically of selling technology company secrets to hedge fund traders for hundreds of thousand of dollars, payoffs she referred to in code as "sugar." Though most knew the technology consultant as Winnie, some of her hedge fund clients called her the Poohster, after the bear always in search of a pot of honey, according to the New York Times.

She is expected to be released from her four-year sentence in June.
 
The appeals court rejected her request for a new trial. She had argued that the government was wrong to use as evidence recordings that were made because a worker could not hear well.