Ex-NY trader draws non-prison term in insider case

* David Plate to serve three years' probation - Judge

* Pled guilty and testified at trial of ringleader

By Grant McCool

NEW YORK, Nov 2 (Reuters) - A former stock trader whose guilty plea and trial testimony proved important in U.S. prosecutors winning the conviction of a ringleader in the Galleon insider trading case was handed a non-prison sentence on Wednesday.

David Plate, 36, testified in May at the trial of former Galleon employee Zvi Goffer and two other associates who were convicted by a federal jury in New York. Plate told the jury that Goffer gave prepaid phones to him and others to discuss purported corporate secrets.

Plate testified that he destroyed his phone when he heard on Oct. 16, 2009, about the arrest of Galleon Group hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam, the central figure in a broad government crackdown on insider trading.

Much of the evidence was gathered using FBI phone taps. Rajaratnam was convicted in May at a separate trial and sentenced on Oct. 13 to serve 11 years in prison, the longest custodial term recorded for insider trading.

Sullivan sentenced Zvi Goffer to 10 years imprisonment in September. The two other associates -- Goffer's brother Emmanuel Goffer and Michael Kimelman -- were sentenced to three years and 2 -1/2 years respectively.

"You were the least culpable in this conspiracy, and by a wide margin," U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan told Plate at Wednesday's proceeding when he sentenced him to three years probation, including six months house arrest. "There was no witness who was more important than you among the cooperators."

The judge ordered Plate, who made profits in trading on inside tips while at Schottenfeld Group LLC in New York, to forfeit $289,000.

Plate stood in court and told the judge that he was working every day "to try and right the wrongs." He said he had accumulated significant debt to friends and family "for taking such a cowardly and unlawful shortcut."

Plate, the Goffer brothers, Kimelman and others were all arrested on Nov. 5, 2009, just weeks after the Rajaratnam charges shook up the lightly regulated hedge fund industry.

The case is USA v Zvi Goffer et al, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 10-00056.