Brant’s fear of an SEC probe was detailed.

In testimony at the New York trial of former Wall Street Journal reporter R. Foster Winans and two others, a one-time sales assistant to the former stockbroker said Peter Brant told her he did not fear prosecution for illegally using advance information from the Journal’s Heard on the Street column to make stock trades. But Diane Puckett said Brant implied that he feared that an investigation would uncover his misuse of funds in clients’ stock trading accounts.