Gambler Wants Insider-Trading Case Tossed Over FBI Leaks

  • Agent tipped reporters about probe of gambler and golfer
  • Attorney said leaks were used to prop up failing probe

Billy Walters exits federal court in New York, on June 1, 2016.

Photographer: Louis Lanzano/Bloomberg
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Las Vegas gambler Billy Walters played his hand on Friday, asking a judge to dismiss insider-trading charges against him after an FBI agent leaked details about the confidential probe to the press.

Walters said in a court filing that the FBI violated his rights by leaking to the press details of a confidential probe of his stock trading. The agency did so to breathe life into a flagging investigation, hoping to prod targets to incriminate themselves after a wiretap on Walters’s phone failed to turn up evidence, said defense attorneys Barry Berke and Paul Schoeman.