The Apple Inc lawyer who was once responsible for enforcing the company\u2019s insider trading policy admitted he used his access to draft SEC filings to personally profit.<\/p>\n
Gene Levoff, Apple\u2019s former director of corporate law, pleaded guilty on Thursday to six counts of securities fraud between 2011 and 2016. Levoff, 48, was co-chairman of the company\u2019s disclosure committee, which allowed him to see Apple\u2019s revenue and earnings statements before they were filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.<\/p>\n
Levoff on several occasions made trades within quarterly blackout periods, even after telling other employees that they were prohibited from trading in Apple stock, according to federal prosecutors in New Jersey. He used the information to make $227,000 in profit and to avoid losses of $377,000, according to the government.<\/p>\n
\u201cGene Levoff betrayed the trust of one of the world\u2019s largest tech companies for his own financial gain,\u201d New Jersey US Attorney Vikas Khanna said in a statement. \u201cDespite being responsible for enforcing Apple\u2019s own ban on insider trading, Levoff used his position of trust to commit insider trading in order to line his own pockets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Levoff\u2019s lawyer, Kevin Marino, didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
Stanford Law Grad<\/strong><\/p>\n US District Judge William J. Martini in Newark, New Jersey set Levoff\u2019s sentencing for Nov. 10. The charges each carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, though he is unlikely to get that much time.<\/p>\n The Stanford Law School graduate, who joined Apple in 2008, was first charged in 2019. Apple fired him in September 2018 after placing him on leave two months earlier, according to a filing in a related lawsuit by the SEC. Over his decade-long career at Apple, he was one of the company\u2019s most senior legal executives, reporting directly to the general counsel.<\/p>\n Levoff last year tried to have the case thrown out as unconstitutional, arguing that no statute specifically bars insider trading. Prosecutors called his argument a bogus \u201cHail Mary,\u201d and it was rejected by the judge.<\/p>\n The case is US v. Levoff, 19-cr-00780, U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey (Newark).<\/p>\n
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