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Federal prosecutors have charged nine people, including a former U.S. congressman from Indiana, with insider trading that resulted in millions of dollars in illegal profits.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said at a news conference that the cases, along with other recently announced crackdowns on insider trading, represent a follow-up to his pledge to “be relentless in eliminating the crime in our financial markets.”
Damian Williams, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, speaks during a news conference at the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki/AP Newsroom)
“We have zero tolerance, zero tolerance for cheating in our markets,” said Gurbir S. Grewal, director of the SEC’s division of enforcement.
The individuals, located on both coasts and in central America, were charged in four separate and unrelated insider trading schemes revealed Monday with the unsealing of the indictments in New York City.
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An indictment identified Stephen Buyer as someone who misappropriated secrets he learned as a consultant to illegally earn $350,000. Buyer served on committees with oversight of the telecommunications industry while a Republican congressman from 1993 to 2011, according to the indictment.
Stephen Buyer was charged with insider trading. (CSPAN)
Buyer, arrested Monday in Indiana, was accused in court documents of engaging in insider trading during a merger of T-Mobile and Sprint, among other deals. Documents said he used his work as a consultant and lobbyist to make illegal profits.
His lawyer, Andrew Goldstein, has maintained Buyer’s innocence, saying in a statement that his client’s stock traders were “legitimate” and he “hopes they will be vindicated quickly.”
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In a civil lawsuit filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission in Manhattan federal court against Buyer, he was described as buying Sprint stock in March 2018 just one day after attending a golf outing with an executive from T-Mobile who told him about the company. then-non-public plan to acquire Sprint.
“When insiders like Buyer (an attorney, former prosecutor, and retired congressman) monetize their access to material, nonpublic information, as alleged in this case, they not only violate federal securities laws, they also undermine the public confidence in the fairness of our markets,” Grewal said.
In a second case, three Silicon Valley tech executives were accused of insider trading on corporate mergers that one of them learned about from his employer.
In a third case, a man who was training to be an FBI agent allegedly stole inside information from his then-girlfriend who worked at a major law firm in Washington, DC. According to court documents, he and a friend made more than $1.4 million in illegal profits after learning that Merck & Co. was going to acquire Pandion Therapeutics.
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In a fourth indictment, a New York-based investment banker was accused of sharing secrets about potential mergers with the understanding that the pair would share in illegal profits of about $280,000.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.