By Jody Godoy

Law360 (April 1, 2020, 5:40 PM EDT) -- Former Rep. Christopher Collins of New York asked a federal judge on Wednesday to give him two extra months to report for his sentence on insider trading charges, saying his age puts him at a higher risk of dying from the novel coronavirus should he contract it in prison.

Collins told U.S. District Judge Vernon Broderick in a letter that prosecutors do not oppose the bid to extend his self-surrender date from April 21 to late June. The judge sentenced Collins in January to two years and two months in prison after the former congressman pled guilty to tipping off family members ahead of a biotech stock drop.

Now, Collins, 69, is urging the judge to put off the start of his sentence in light of public health guidance indicating that people over age 65 are at a higher risk of dying from COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the new coronavirus.

"It would be particularly dangerous for an elderly person with underlying health conditions like Mr. Collins to report for incarceration right now in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic that is ravaging the United States," his attorneys wrote.

Collins pointed to the growing number of cases in federal prisons, including at least one death, which has sparked calls for action from Congress. He added that Attorney General William Barr has instructed the Bureau of Prisons to look at releasing some at-risk inmates to home confinement.

Collins also sought to rely on a letter from an attorney at the Bureau of Prisons to prosecutors on another case asking them to help delay a sentence.

He redacted the name of the defendant in that case, but court records indicate it is Lee Ferguson, a man in his 60s who pled guilty to money laundering after being accused of stealing $3.3 million from his employees' paychecks over four years.

Ferguson was scheduled to report to the federal prison camp in Pensacola, Florida, in late April, but was granted an extension Monday after he cited the BOP letter and his own risk of serious effects from COVID-19.

In its March 26 letter, BOP Assistant General Counsel Robert A. Martinez wrote that while prisons are quarantining some inmates for 14 days before the start of their sentence, minimum security camps are not set up to enforce such a quarantine, making local jails the fallback option.

"Unfortunately, many local jails are refusing to admit such inmates at this time," Martinez wrote.

Collins had asked to be designated to the same Pensacola facility, but wrote in his letter Wednesday that the BOP is placing him at a facility in South Carolina.

In October, Collins copped to securities fraud conspiracy and making false statements for using his position as a board member of Australian biotech company Innate Immunotherapeutics to help his son Cameron and others avoid nearly $768,000 in losses.

Prosecutors said that after Collins learned that a test of Innate's experimental multiple sclerosis drug had gone badly, he passed the inside information to his son in a June 2017 call from the White House lawn, allowing him and others to dump their shares in the biotech company before the news was public.

The government is represented by Scott Hartman, Max Nicholas and Damian Williams of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.

Chris Collins is represented by Jonathan New, Kendall Wangsgard, Jonathan A. Forman and Jonathan Barr of BakerHostetler.

The case is U.S. v. Collins et al., case number 1:18-cr-00567, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

--Additional reporting by Stewart Bishop. Editing by Amy Rowe.

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