WASHINGTON _ New York Republican Rep. Chris Collins surrendered to the FBI on Wednesday over criminal insider trading charges.
A review of the three-term congressman's financial disclosures shows the extent of his personal wealth. Collins ranked 13th among House and Senate colleagues in the most recent Roll Call Wealth of Congress index, a ranking of reported assets and liabilities.
Those disclosures reveal a few other key takeaways of Collins' financial history:
OTHER HEALTH TIES
Collins was arrested for securities fraud related to Innate Immunotherapeutics, a drug company for which he is listed as a director. According to House financial disclosures, he also held leadership positions for numerous other companies, including ZeptoMetrix Corporation, an infectious disease diagnostics company. Until Wednesday, when he was stripped from his position on the Energy and Commerce Committee by Speaker Paul D. Ryan, he was on that panel's Health Subcommittee, which oversees biomedical research and development and the regulation of food and drugs.
FAMILY CONNECTIONS
Collins' son and future in-laws were also implicated in the Security and Exchange Commission's insider trading complaint. The congressman has other family ties in his finances, too. In his financial disclosures, he noted that his spouse, Mary Collins, received a salary from ZeptoMetrix Corporation and Volland Electric Equipment, an electrical repair shop. His asset ownership in both companies rose from more than $10,000,000 in 2016 to $30,000,000 in 2017.
INNATE INSTINCTS
The SEC complaint against Collins does not relate to his own sale of the Innate Immunotherapeutics stock in 2017, but he has actively made transactions in the company over his three terms in Congress. House period transaction reports show Collins bought more than 4 million shares of Innate in 2016 at a minimum value of $1,000,000 and also bought unknown numbers of shares ranging from $1,000,000 in 2015 to $2,200,000 in 2013. His only documented sale related to Innate Immunotherapeutics was in 2018, when he sold stock for a minimum value of $15,000.
CAMPAIGN FUNDS
In the latest campaign financial disclosures from the Federal Election Commission, Collins spent more than $250,000 in "legal services" to Baker Hostetler, the law firm defending him in the Innate matter. While he paid for the firm's services during the 2014 election cycle, those payments were worth no more than $2,600. Collins became the subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation in October for insider trading.
