(File 1988) Representative Stephen Buyer (R/IN), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, takes his investigative materials with him at the end of impeachment proceedings on December 12.
Reuters
WASHINGTON — Former Indiana Republican Rep. Stephen Buyer has been charged with insider trading, using accounts owned by his wife and longtime lover to hide some of the transactions, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced Monday and Values.
Buyer, who left Congress in 2011, is accused of trading on nonpublic information he received as a consultant after leaving office.
According to the civil complaint filed in Manhattan federal court, Buyer bought more than $1.5 million in stock in two separate companies, Sprint and Navigant Consulting, based on inside information over two years.
He sold Sprint stock in 2018 after its merger with T-Mobile leaked, at a profit of at least $107,000, according to the SEC. He sold Navigant stock in 2019 after news broke that Navigant would be acquired by Guidehouse LLP.
Buyer used several different accounts, including his wife Joni Buyer’s brokerage account, to buy the stock. Joni Buyer is not accused of any legal wrongdoing, but is named in the charges because she technically benefited from ill-gotten gains in her investment account.
Buyer allegedly spread the stock purchases across 7 different accounts, including two separate IRAs belonging only to him, an investment account belonging to his wife Joni Buyer; a joint account owned by the couple; a joint account that the buyer has shared with his child; a joint account the buyer shared with his cousin and a seventh account owned by a woman identified only as “Friend-1.”
According to the SEC complaint, Buyer began a romantic relationship with the unidentified woman in 2006. In 2018, Buyer used the woman’s IRA account to buy more than $12,000 in Sprint stock. A year later, he allegedly used his account again to buy $22,000 of stock in Navigant, shortly before both companies were acquired by Buyer’s consulting clients.
“When insiders like Buyer, an attorney, a former prosecutor and a 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 trust and the public’s confidence in the fairness of our markets,” Gurbir S. Grewal, director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, said in the SEC’s press release.
An attorney for Buyer could not be immediately identified for comment.
Buyer served in Congress from 1993 to 2011, where he represented Indiana’s 4th congressional district, formerly the 5th.
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