In the Galleon hedge fund insider trading case, an important defendant pleaded guilty to criminal charges on Wednesday and admitted of crossing the limits by giving out information on stocks including IBM and Advanced Micro Devices.

A former hedge fund trader named Danielle Chiesi, along with Galleon hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam was arrested in the month of October 2009 which according to officials can be termed as the biggest investigation of insider trading at hedge funds in America.

Charges were brought against Chiesi accusing her of giving out some of the confidential information to Rajaratnam that the government accuses him of trading on. Evidence was collected in secretly recorded telephone conversations between them and others in an ongoing investigation of the industry. Her guilty admittance comes a month before Rajaratnam goes on trial.

Chiesi, aged forty five stated that she felt ashamed for her doing, during a thirty-minute long plea proceeding in U. S. District Court located in New York. She further stated that by crossing her limits on those occasions, she ruined her twenty-year career in her field and brought disgrace to an honorable profession.

She begged apology to the court and stated that she took full responsibility of her doings and further stated that she felt immense pain from her guilty plea.

Chiesi was sporting a dark pant suit and white blouse, and wept while her mother, sister and two nieces kept watching her from the public benches.

She admitted of doing three counts of conspiracy of securities fraud in front of U. S. District Judge Richard Holwell. The same judge is presiding over the criminal trial of Rajaratnam which will begin on February 28.

Chiesi, the former worker at New Castle Funds LLC, might have to serve up to four years in prison under the terms of a plea agreement.