May 10 (Bloomberg) -- A Morgan Stanley compliance officer and her husband pleaded guilty today to insider-trading charges just hours before another official of the firm and her husband were arrested on identical charges in a separate case.

The couples -- one from New York and the other from New Jersey -- came through the federal courthouse in Manhattan just hours after one another to face charges that they traded on secret information stolen from Morgan Stanley. In each case, prosecutors said the leaks led to $600,000 in illegal profits.

``The alleged wrongdoing by a former employee of our firm is an egregious violation of Morgan Stanley's values and policies,'' said Mark Lake, a spokesman for New York-based Morgan Stanley, the world's second-biggest securities firm by market value.

This morning, Randi Collotta, 30, a Morgan Stanley compliance officer, pleaded guilty to charges that she tipped off her husband Christopher Collotta, 34, and a Florida broker, Marc Jurman, about Adobe Systems Inc.'s 2005 purchase of Macromedia Inc. and other deals. Both Collottas are lawyers.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Fish said Randi Collotta's tips were relayed along a chain of conspirators, starting with her husband and moving on to Jurman, then former Bear Stearns & Co. brokers Robert Babcock and Ken Okada and ultimately to hedge fund trader Erik Franklin and others.

Profits

The information generated more than $600,000 in illegal profits, though the Collottas, of Bayport, New York, earned only $9,000 on the Macromedia trade.

``I conspired with others to engage in an insider-trading scheme at the time I was employed by Morgan Stanley,'' a weeping Randi Collotta told U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero in New York at roughly 11 a.m.

John Coffee, a securities law professor at Columbia University in New York, said she may get a stiff sentence because of her position as compliance officer.

``It's the equivalent of a CIA officer being indicted for selling defense secrets,'' he said. ``You are the intelligence operation.''

Three hours later, U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia announced the arrest of another couple, former Morgan Stanley finance vice president Jennifer Wang, 31, and her husband, Ruben Chen, 34, a hedge fund analyst at ING Investment Management.

From December 2005 through March 2007, Wang and Chen traded in the securities of Town and Country Trust, Glenborough Realty Trust and Genesis Health Care, based on information Wang learned from Morgan Stanley, prosecutors said. They earned more than $600,000 in illegal profits, prosecutors said.

Mergers

According to the complaint, Morgan Stanley was advising its subsidiary, Morgan Stanley Real Estate, on the acquisition of both Town and Country and Glenborough. Wang learned about the firm's failure to acquire Town and Country and the successful purchase of Glenborough, before news of the transactions became public, Garcia said.

``Wang passed the information she obtained from Morgan Stanley to her husband Chen,'' who was then at ING, Garcia said, adding that the couple traded through an account in the name of Wang's mother.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today also sued Wang and Chen for securities fraud.

``We do see a lot of cases involving family members because family members pass information along to each other,'' said Daniel Hawke, the agency's regional director in Philadelphia. ``We're cracking down.''

ING, Defense Comment

A spokeswoman for ING Groep NV, the largest Dutch financial- services company, said the firm cooperated with the Securities and Exchange Commission when it began an investigation. David Spears, the lawyer for Wang and Chan, said the couple would plead innocent at a court hearing later today.

Lake, the Morgan Stanley spokesman, said the firm cooperated with investigators.

A third couple, not connected to Morgan Stanley, has also come under scrutiny for insider trading.

On May 8, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued a Hong Kong couple, Kan King Wong and Charlotte Ka On Wong Leung, for using inside information to make $8.2 million from purchases of Dow Jones & Co. stock before News Corp.'s $5 billion bid for the company.

``We've had several recent incidents at investment banks in which insiders have traded on sensitive information,'' Coffee said. ``That's reminiscent of the 1980s.''

In other cases, former employees of Merrill Lynch & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., both based in New York, are facing insider trading charges. The insider case against the Collottas also led to charges against a former UBS AG executive.

The Collatta case is U.S. v. Collotta, 07-cr-143, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

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