Researcher guilty in insider-trading case

A California finance researcher who prosecutors said used code words like "recipes," "cooks" and "sugar" to disguise an insider-trading scheme was convicted of wire fraud yesterday in federal court in Manhattan.

Winifred Jiau also was convicted of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and wire fraud in one of the first trials to result from a government crackdown on Wall Street middlemen suspected of peddling inside information as if it were legitimate research. The jury got the case Friday after a two-week trial and deliberated less than a day.

Jiau, 43, of Fremont, Calif., was among 13 people arrested last year on charges that she conspired to accept cash and gifts to feed inside information to hedge funds. Most of the other defendants have pleaded guilty. ---- AP