Manager

NEW YORK - A senior portfolio manager for one of the nation's largest hedge funds was arrested Friday, accused of joining an insider-trading conspiracy that the government said made more than $6 million illegally for the investment company founded by billionaire businessman Steven A. Cohen. The arrest broadens the government's probe of trading practices at SAC Capital Advisors, which manages $15 billion. Two weeks ago, the Securities and Exchange Commission said two affiliates of SAC Capital would pay more than $614 million in what federal regulators called the largest insider-trading settlement ever.

When the two men sat in a cafeteria at Bright House Field two springs ago, there was no acrimony. Ruben Amaro Jr. unveiled a three-year extension for Charlie Manuel, a contract that would make him one of the highest-paid managers in baseball. "More than likely," Manuel said then, "I'll stay around as long as they'll have me. " When a disappointing 81-81 season ended last October, the two men faced a row of cameras in the basement of Citizens Bank Park to explain what would change.

Joseph L. Novello Sr., 90, of West Chester, a petroleum engineer who became a sales manager for an encyclopedia company, died Sunday, March 10, at the Neighborhood Health Inpatient Hospice in West Chester. Mr. Novello retired as a regional sales manager for Encyclopaedia Britannica Films Inc. in 1987 after leaving a career as a petroleum engineer for Standard Oil Co. He made the switch in the early 1950s, when he was notified that he would be transferring from New York to a facility in the West.

PATCO passengers should not have had to wait for more than an hour on a train stranded over the Delaware River on Saturday with little information or assistance, PATCO general manager John Rink said Wednesday. Rink apologized at the monthly board meeting of PATCO's parent, the Delaware River Port Authority. "We could have done a better job of communicating with passengers . . . and with the general public," Rink said. "The train was stopped on the bridge far too long before the notification of DRPA leadership and the public.

Was there really any other choice for an investment manager for the city-sponsored Startup PHL Seed Fund but First Round Capital? That's the West Philadelphia firm picked by the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp. to invest $6 million in information technology start-ups either based in or with significant operations in the city. After all, what has become one of the nation's most active venture capital firms moved its headquarters from West Conshohocken into the city last August and launched the Dorm Room Fund in the fall to invest in companies started by area college students.

The former business manager of the Philadelphia-area charter-school network founded by Dorothy June Brown pleaded guilty Friday in federal court to his role in an alleged scheme to defraud the schools of $6.7 million. In a separate hearing later in the day, attorneys for Brown won a bail reduction for the 75-year-old educator, who faces more than 60 counts of wire fraud and charges that she led a broad conspiracy to obstruct justice. Anthony Smoot, 50, of New Castle, Del., pleaded guilty to charges that he participated in a conspiracy with Brown and others to obstruct justice and had obstructed justice during parts of a four-year federal probe of the schools.

General manager Paul Holmgren said he was not considering a coaching change, and he criticized the Flyers' "compete" level during an impromptu news conference at the team's practice facility in Voorhees on Thursday. At first, Holmgren gave coach Peter Laviolette a seemingly lukewarm endorsement. Asked if Laviolette was on the hot seat, Holmgren said, "I don't think so. " Holmgren later added: "I haven't even thought about" making a coaching change, and he was "not at the point" of consummating a major trade.

The former business manager of Dorothy June Brown's charter school network Friday admitted he had played a role in Brown's alleged scheme to defraud the schools of $6.7 million. Anthony Smoot, 50, of New Castle, Del. appeared in US District Court this morning to plead guilty to charges that he had participated in a conspiracy to obstruct justice and had obstructed justice during portions of a four-year federal probe of charter schools Brown had founded and run in the Philadelphia area.