Opinion ID: 490525
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Statements of Certain Market Actors

Text: 79 Apex offers evidence of statements by certain persons that it claims suggest evidence of a conspiracy. This evidence adds little to what we already have discussed. The district court found that most of this evidence consists of inadmissible hearsay and that in any event none of the evidence tended to prove the existence of a conspiracy. We need not reach the hearsay question since the proffered evidence does not give rise to an inference of conspiracy. 80 For example, Apex argues that Tony Densieski, a trader for Texas Energy (not a defendant) informed the Vice-President of the Exchange that certain longs had invited Densieski to take advantage of Apex's position. However, Densieski never specified which longs had made this offer. We clearly cannot infer the participation on the part of any defendant based on such a generalized accusation. 81 The testimony of Jay Bernstein, an employee of Northville Caribbean is similarly unhelpful. Bernstein merely testified as to his understanding that there was a conspiracy among other longs. These longs were unspecified, and Bernstein testified that he had no personal knowledge of any actions taken by the longs. 82 Similarly, while Julian Raber allegedly told Patricia Lyons of Apex that he was aware of a conspiracy to 'squeeze the shorts,'  and referred to the actions of the longs as a sting, the testimony concerning these statements lacked any indication of what facts Raber based his opinion on or even whether his opinion was based on anything at all other than rumor or speculation. 83 Upon examination of these and other alleged statements by market participants proffered by Apex in support of its conspiracy theory, we must conclude that taken either as a whole or individually, none of them creates an inference of a conspiracy among any additional named defendants. 84