SAN FRANCISCO - Three former natural gas energy traders pleaded guilty to price manipulation charges Monday, bringing to at least six the number of traders convicted of illegally using energy trade publications to inflate prices, authorities said.
Christopher Joseph McDonald, 38, Paul Atha, 39, and Michael Whalen, 36, entered their pleas in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. The three acknowledged conspiring to report fictitious trades to an industry newsletter, Inside FERC, for about four months starting July 1, 2000, in an attempt to skew the published index prices of natural gas.
McDonald, of Atlanta, was a supervisor on the natural gas trading floor for Atlanta-based Mirant Corp; Atha, of Houston, was a trader for Mirant; and Whalen, of Houston, was a natural gas trader for Cincinnati-based Cinergy Corp. Whalen had previously worked for Mirant, authorities said.
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