Samuel D. Waksal

Waksal was born on September 8, 1947, in Paris, France, to a Jewish family, the son of Holocaust survivors. He earned a bachelor's degree in 1969 and a doctorate in immunobiology in 1974, both from The Ohio State University.

Over the next 15 years, he worked as a medical researcher at Stanford University, the National Cancer Institute, Tufts University and Mount Sinai Hospital, New York. However, he often faced scrutiny for misrepresenting the source of material and fabricating lab results.

Waksal is divorced from Cynthia F. Waksal; they had two children: Aliza and Elana. His daughter, Elana, is married to Jarrett Posner, son of Steven Posner and grandson of Victor Posner. Waksal dated Martha Stewart's daughter, Alexis, for several years prior to his criminal conviction. As of 2016, he was reported to hold executive positions with the New York Biotechnology Association and the New York Council for the Humanities, and is a member of the board of advisors of Rockefeller University.

Waksal became aware of the FDA's rejection on Christmas Day 2001. Unable to get the FDA to reconsider, ImClone began drafting a press release announcing the Erbitux rejection. This was due to be released at the close of business on December 28. Until then, under federal securities law, Waksal was barred from selling his ImClone stock or telling anyone about the pending rejection. However, public release of the Erbitux rejection would expose Waksal to a number of financial problems beyond the near-certainty of ImClone's stock sliding. For example, Waksal had pledged a warrant to buy ImClone shares as collateral for a loan from Bank of America despite having already executed the warrant in 2000. If Bank of America discovered the warrant was no longer valid, Waksal could be charged with bank fraud. He tipped off several of his friends and family to sell their ImClone stock. When Waksal's broker at Merrill Lynch, Peter Bacanovic, became aware of the pending rejection, he alerted their mutual friend, Martha Stewart, that ImClone was about to lose a good deal of its value.

Waksal was arrested June 12, 2002 on insider trading charges. On October 15, he pleaded guilty to charges of securities fraud, bank fraud, obstruction of justice, and perjury.

On March 3, 2003, he pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and wire fraud for avoiding $1.2 million in sales taxes on $15 million in artwork. The art included works by Mark Rothko, Richard Serra, Roy Lichtenstein, and Willem de Kooning, purchased between June 2000 and October 2001.

On June 10, 2003, Waksal was sentenced to seven years and three months in prison and ordered to pay more than $4 million in fines and back taxes, all the maximum punishments allowable under law. Waksal wanted to go to Federal Prison Camp, Eglin, but instead he went to Federal Correctional Institution, Schuylkill. He was later transferred to the Federal Correctional Institution, Milan. On February 9, 2009, Waksal, Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) # 53803-054, was released from BOP custody.