Compliancex

A hedge fund manager who read a Wall Street Journal article saying that the feds were investigating his firm for insider trading reprotedly took matters into his own hands, destroying two of computer’s external drives and a flash drive with pliers, and throwing the contents into four separate garbage trucks. Now he faces criminal charges.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the federal government charged Donald Longueuil, a former SAC Capital Advisors manager, with “conspiracy to commit securities fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with his activities while at SAC and obstruction of justice afterward.”

Noah Freeman, another SAC manager, pled guilty to conspiracy and securities fraud charges and is cooperating with the federal government.

According to the court complaint, Longueuil reportedly told Freeman what he did to his computer’s data with the pliers after reading the Journal’s article about his company being investigated. “F—in’ pulled the external drives apart,” he said. “Put ‘em into four separate little baggies, and then at 2 a.m.,” he “put this stuff inside my black North Face” coat and left his apartment on a Friday night. He said he went on a “twenty block walk around the city” to find garbage trucks and threw the mangled computer parts into “four different garbage trucks.” Longueuil told Freeman the reported evidence was “all f—in’ ripped apart. Everything’s gone.”

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said that “when people frantically begin shredding sensitive documents and deleting computer files and smashing flash drives and chasing garbage trucks at 2 a.m.,” it is “not because they have been operating legitimately.”

This wasn’t the only case connected with the insider trading probe that alleges shredded evidence. Jason Phlaum and Samir Barai, who both worked for Barai Capital Management, were also charged in the investigation. Reuters says that Phlaum, who worked under Barai, pleaded guilty and is cooperating with the feds.

A court complaint says that Barai told Phlaum to “delete ur bbm chatr” — meaning Blackberry messages — after reading about the feds’ probe into insider trading. He also reportedly told Phlaum to “shred as much as u can.”

SAC has not been charged, and a spokesman for the company said “we are outraged by the alleged actions of two former employees.” Barai Capital Management has reportedly gone out of business.

Lisa Swan, a former senior new media editor at the New York Daily News, is a columnist for The Faster Times and a blogger for Subway Squawkers. Her work has also appeared in Yahoo Sports, Huffington Post, Heater Magazine, and the upcoming book Graphical Player 2011.