SEC mistakenly received Galleon wiretaps: briefs

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Criminal prosecutors apparently made the mistake of giving to the SEC, wiretap recordings gathered against Galleon hedge fund insider trading defendants, a legal brief said, potentially compounding a fight over confidential evidence central to the case.

The recordings were returned to prosecutors when the mistake was discovered, the office of the Manhattan U.S. Attorney said in a January 27 court filing, which was made public on Tuesday.

The SEC, pressing civil charges against Galleon hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam and a score of others, demanded in court on January 25, that defendants hand over recordings of wiretap evidence used to charge them in a parallel criminal case.

But subsequent court filings said the SEC had already been in possession since mid-December of some non-consensual recordings related to defendant and former trader, Zvi Goffer.

"Yesterday, the government learned that, in mid-December 2009, it inadvertently provided the SEC with recordings of certain communications intercepted," the letter brief of January 27 by U.S. prosecutor Jonathan Streeter, said.

While the SEC and criminal prosecutors often coordinate with each other, there are limits on the information they can share in parallel civil and criminal cases.

(Reporting by Grant McCool, editing by Maureen Bavdek)