Ex-Morgan Stanley worker held on data theft charge

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors arrested a former Morgan Stanley & Co. (MS.N: Quote, Profile, Research) employee on Wednesday on charges relating to the theft of proprietary information about the brokerage firm's hedge fund clients.

Ronald Peteka, along with co-conspirators, accessed Morgan Stanley's computers and obtained confidential information relating to the firm's prime brokerage business, the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan alleged in a complaint.

Peteka e-mailed documents belonging to Morgan Stanley from his e-mail account at a New York company to a personal account on at least five occasions between December 2005 and February 2006, the complaint alleged.

Peteka's arrest follows that of co-conspirator Ira Chilowitz, a former Morgan Stanley computer consultant who pleaded guilty in February this year to stealing names of the firm's hedge fund clients and confidential information about the fees they were charged.