Former Apple Senior Securities Lawyer Pleads Guilty To Years Of Insider Trading At The Tech Giant

An ex-senior securities lawyer at Apple has pleaded guilty to insider trading spanning five years he was supposed to prevent.

The former lawyer, named Gene Levoff was charged with insider trading at Apple. Image: Getty

An ex-senior securities lawyer at Apple has pleaded guilty to insider trading spanning five years he was supposed to prevent. The former lawyer, named Gene Levoff was charged with insider trading at Apple in February 2019. Gene Levoff, 48, of San Carlos, California, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge William J Martini to six counts of an indictment charging him with securities fraud.

From February 2011 to April 2016, Levoff -- Apple's top corporate attorney who also served as the company’s assistant secretary and corporate secretary -- misappropriated material, non-public information about Apple’s financial results and then executed trades involving the company’s stock, according to a note by the Department of Justice (DoJ). This scheme to defraud Apple and its shareholders allowed Levoff to realise profits of approximately worth $227,000 on certain trades and to avoid losses of approximately $377,000 on others.

“Gene Levoff betrayed the trust of one of the world’s largest tech companies for his own financial gain,” Attorney for the United States Khanna, said in a statement.

“Despite being responsible for enforcing Apple’s own ban on insider trading, Levoff used his position of trust to commit insider trading in order to line his own pockets. This Office will continue to prioritize securities fraud prosecutions.”

“This defendant exploited his position within a company strictly for financial gain that he would not have otherwise realized,” said Terence Reilly, FBI Acting Special Agent in Charge in Newark.

The former Apple lawyer's sentencing is scheduled for November 10, said a report by The Verge.