As lawyers for Raj Rajaratnam tried to poke holes in the federal government's insider trading case against the Galleon Group co-founder, prosecutors were charging another former star hedge fund manager with getting illegal stock tips. Yet with the case against Rajaratnam likely just days from going to a jury, some in the legal community said it is fair to wonder about the timing of those new charges, against former FrontPoint Partners LLC manager Joseph "Chip" Skowron, in a case prosecutors have been building for several months. Skowron, who worked in Greenwich, Connecticut, was accused of trading on tips from a French doctor about problems in a clinical drug trial being conducted by Human Genome Sciences Inc (HGSI.O), allowing him to avoid $30 million of losses. Yves Benhamou, the doctor, was charged in November with tipping an unnamed investor who prosecutors now say is Skowron. Benhamou pleaded guilty on Monday, while Skowron was released Wednesday on $6 million bail. Skowron did not enter a plea.
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