Former GOP Rep. Stephen Purchaser charged with insider buying and selling by federal prosecutors, SEC

WASHINGTON — Former Indiana Rep. Stephen Purchaser was arrested Monday on federal insider buying and selling fees, because the Securities and Trade Fee introduced a parallel civil grievance towards the Republican for a similar conduct.

The legal and civil actions each allege that Purchaser used a number of funding accounts owned or co-owned by his spouse, a former mistress, his son and his cousin for inventory transactions he executed after acquiring nonpublic data whereas working as a guide for 2 totally different firms after leaving Congress in 2011.

Purchaser additionally allegedly engaged in elaborate schemes to cowl up the supply of his data, in keeping with the legal indictment issued towards him by a grand jury in U.S. District Courtroom in Manhattan. That indictment fees him with 4 counts of securities fraud.

Purchaser served in Congress from 1993 to 2011, representing Indiana’s 4th Congressional District, beforehand numbered as its fifth.

Prosecutors stated that in 2018 and 2019 Purchaser purchased greater than $1.5 million price of inventory in Dash and Navigant Consulting based mostly on insider data he acquired whereas doing consulting work.

He later offered the shares after the data grew to become public, prosecutors allege.

Within the Dash scheme, prosecutors stated Purchaser used 4 totally different accounts to purchase greater than 112,000 Dash shares in a single week in 2018. He offered the shares in August of that yr, after information of Dash’s merger with T-Cellular grew to become public, for a revenue of greater than $126,000, in keeping with the indictment.

In 2019, he allegedly purchased greater than 16,000 shares of Navigant utilizing a number of accounts, after which offered practically all of them on the identical day, after information grew to become public that Navigant could be acquired by Guidehouse, authorities stated. The Navigant inventory sale netted roughly $223,000 in revenue.

Purchaser allegedly unfold the inventory purchases in each firms throughout seven totally different accounts.

They included two separate Particular person Retirement Accounts belonging to him alone; an funding account belonging to his spouse; a joint account Purchaser owned together with his spouse; a joint account Purchaser shared together with his son; and a joint account Purchaser shared together with his cousin. Purchaser additionally used a seventh account, owned by a girl recognized solely as “Good friend-1,” as a part of the schemes.

Purchaser started a romantic relationship with the unidentified Good friend-1 in 2006, in keeping with the SEC grievance.

In 2018, Purchaser used the girl’s IRA account to buy greater than $12,000 price of inventory in Dash, that grievance stated.

A yr later, he used the girl’s account once more to purchase $22,000 of inventory in Navigant, shortly earlier than each firms had been acquired by Purchaser’s consulting purchasers, in keeping with the SEC.

In his effort to cowl up the schemes, Purchaser allegedly used analyst report printouts and phony notes in an effort to persuade investigators that his inventory purchases had been knowledgeable solely by publicly out there market analysis, in keeping with authorities.

“When insiders like Purchaser — an legal professional, a former prosecutor, and a retired Congressman — monetize their entry to materials, nonpublic data, as alleged on this case, they not solely violate the federal securities legal guidelines, but additionally undermine public belief and confidence within the equity of our markets,” stated SEC Enforcement Division Director Gurbir Grewal in a press release.

Purchaser’s lawyer, Andrew Goldstein of Cooley LLP, informed CNBC in a press release, “Congressman Purchaser is harmless.”

“His inventory trades had been lawful. He appears ahead to being shortly vindicated,” Goldstein stated.