Marylin Star \nNEW YORK - Marylin Star's brother tells the New York Post the fugitive porn star has been in touch with her family in Canada, but they're not about to tip off her precise whereabouts to authorities seeking her in an insider trading scandal which is rocking Wall Street this week.
The brother, whose name is being withheld by the Post at his request, tells the paper the family is fine otherwise. "But it's been a crazy time for us," he tells the paper. "We all just want to keep to ourselves right now."
Star, whose real name is Kathryn Gannon, is wanted in a case in which she's accused of receiving advance merger tips from her then-lover, investment banker James McDermott, and trading stock based on those tips, which she would then pass on to another reputed lover, industrialist Anthony Pomponio. She and Pomponio are each said to have pocketed over $80,000 as a result of those tips.
Both men are free on bond, while Star remains in hiding.
Star is said to be close to her mother, who lives in Prince George and is said to be fighting cancer. She also has a cousin in Edmonton, where she grew up, but this cousin, Jeff Gannon, tells the Post she wasn't exactly expected to show up there. "She wouldn't get into this house," he insisted.
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports that Keefe, Bruyette & Woods LLC, the investment bank for whom McDermott was chief executive officer until this last July, was kind of caught with its pants down on the insider trading scandal. The Journal says that some three dozen Keefe, Bruyette employees bought company stock totaling $18 million amid buyout rumors but weren't told by upper management that the insider trading scandal was brewing.
In fact, the paper says, McDermott had tipped off firm directors of an insider trading investigation involving "a friend" and that he was likely to be scrutinized, too. "This news," the Journal says, "led the firm in May to yank plans for an initial public offering of its stock."
The paper says the firm itself isn't likely to face potential civil or criminal liability in the case, but it might have a hard time if it yet plans to sell itself or go public.
According to what the Journal describes as "(i)ndividuals familiar with Mr. McDermott's defense," McDermott apparently told Keefe, Bruyette's board of directors that he was only recommending certain stocks to Star, not passing inside information. They also tell the Journal that he said he told her only about possible deals in which there was information already publicly available.
