Steven Cohen Urges Court to Dismiss Ex-Wife’s Fraud Suit

By Patricia Hurtado

Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg

Steven Cohen, founder of SAC Captial Advisors LP.

SAC Capital Advisors LP founder Steven Cohen said a lawsuit by his ex-wife accusing him of defrauding her -- previously thrown out and then reinstated -- should again be dismissed.
Cohen said the lawsuit’s “unwanted intrusion and harassment” should be halted because he has evidence that Patricia Cohen made “false representations” to support her claims that filed the case in a timely manner, according to a filing yesterday in Manhattan federal court.
The case began five years ago when
Patricia Cohen alleged that during the couple’s divorce and in later discussions about spousal maintenance, Steven Cohen concealed the existence of $5.5 million he received from real estate investments.
A judge dismissed the suit in 2011, saying Patricia Cohen took too long to bring the case. A federal appeals court revived it in 2013, after she argued that she didn’t learn of the payment at the time of her divorce or as far back as 1991.
Steven Cohen said new evidence shows that his ex-wife knew about the real-estate transaction in 1989. In her five-year pursuit of the case, Patricia Cohen is on her fifth set of lawyers, he said in yesterday’s filing.
Allowing the case to proceed in light of the new proof of what Patricia Cohen knew 25 years ago “would be to countenance the worst kind of attempted legal extortion,” Cohen’s lawyers said in a letter to U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska, who is presiding over the case.

Probe Records

Gerald Lefcourt, a lawyer for Patricia Cohen, yesterday asked Preska in a letter to compel Steven Cohen to produce records from federal regulators’ investigation of SAC Capital that may be used to challenge his credibility.
“Evidence that Steven Cohen is simply unworthy of belief is fair game here where documents have become unavailable because of the successful burying of the evidence that would have alerted Mrs. Cohen to the fraud sooner,” he wrote.
SAC Capital pleaded guilty to securities fraud and agreed to end its investment advisory business and pay $1.8 billion in a settlement with the U.S. government that was approved in April. The hedge fund company changed its name to Point72 Asset Management LP. Cohen, 58, denied wrongdoing and hasn’t been charged with a crime.
Patricia Cohen alleged in her 2009 lawsuit that her ex-husband ran Stamford, Connecticut-based SAC Capital as a racketeering enterprise. She said the hedge fund engaged in acts such as insider trading, bank fraud and money laundering in violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley dismissed the RICO claim in January. He allowed other fraud allegations against Steven Cohen and his brother Donald to move toward trial.
The case is Cohen v. Cohen, 09-cv-10230, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).