NEW YORK, July 24 (Reuters) - An outspoken research analyst charged with supplying hedge funds with illegal tips is expected to plead guilty in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Wednesday, a person familiar with the matter said.

John Kinnucan, 55, of Portland, Oregon, paid insiders with cash, trips and other benefits to get secret information between 2008 and 2010, including sales trends for Apple Inc's iPhone, authorities said after his arrest in February.

Kinnucan, who headed Broadband Research LLC, funneled the information to hedge fund traders in California and New York in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars, the authorities said.

Kinnucan is expected to plead guilty to securities fraud, the person familiar with the matter said. The person did not want to be identified because the plea had not yet taken place.

An attorney for Kinnucan could not be reached for comment. A spokeswoman for federal prosecutors in Manhattan did not immediately return a call for comment.

Kinnucan became something of a celebrity in the financial world in 2010 by publicly refusing to cooperate with the U.S. government's broad insider trading investigation. He wouldn't wear a wire and sent a widely circulated email to current and former clients of his firm to alert them to the probe.

The case is USA v Kinnucan, case No. 12-00163, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

For the USA: Avi Weitzman and Katherine Goldstein of the U.S. Attorney's Office

For Kinnucan: Thomas J. Hester of the Office of the Federal Public Defender 

(Reporting by Basil Katz; additional reporting by Karen Freifeld)

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