Lawyers say recent securities-fraud cases have a new twist: they are the product of the daily humdrum of two adults doing their jobs remotely
4 min
Steven Teixeira’s use of his girlfriend’s laptop began innocently enough when she asked him to keep an eye on her work email while she went to fitness classes and ran errands.
As they weathered the pandemic from their apartment in Queens, N.Y., he gave in to temptation. His sweetheart worked as an executive assistant at Morgan Stanley, and her calendar invites included meetings about planned mergers and acquisitions that involved the investment bank.
Teixeira, a compliance executive at a payment-processing company whom she intended to marry, used the information to trade in advance of the deals. It netted him thousands in profits, promises of Rolex watches from friends he tipped off, and the scrutiny of federal officials probing insider trading. He pleaded guilty to a dozen fraud charges in June.
There is a rich history in securities fraud of “pillow talk” cases, in which insider traders glean confidential information from romantic partners. The Covid era offered a twist: Secrets weren’t spilled in the bedroom or over a bottle of wine, but during the humdrum routine of two adults working from home.
“During Covid, there was an uptick in brazen conduct,” said Edward Imperatore, a defence lawyer at law firm Morrison & Foerster. “In a work-from-home environment, people acted with more impunity.”
Another recent case snared a boyfriend who was training to work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Seth Markin pleaded guilty in December to trading on information he purloined from his lawyer girlfriend, an associate in the Washington office of law firm Covington & Burling.
In 2021, she was working on a pharmaceutical acquisition from her one-bedroom apartment, where Markin spent days at a time. According to prosecutors, she trusted him because he told her he had a security clearance, was going to be an FBI agent, and wanted to marry her.
Prosecutors said Markin passed on tips that led to at least 20 people trading based on confidential information. “I knew that my behavior was wrong,” Markin told the judge during his plea hearing. He is scheduled to be sentenced in March.
Representatives for the FBI and Covington declined to comment.
In Teixeira’s case, he was aided by a mouse-jiggler he bought that ensured his girlfriend’s laptop wouldn’t lock when she wasn’t using it, according to court documents. He has been cooperating with prosecutors and is scheduled to testify this year at the trial of his former friend, Jordan Meadow, who at the time was a stockbroker with Spartan Capital Securities. Meadow made more than $700,000 trading on Teixeira’s information and used the tips to advise clients who made millions, prosecutors allege.
“Yo you see UFS,” Meadow texted Teixeira, referencing the stock symbol of a company involved in a $3 billion deal, according to the indictment. He then asked for more nonpublic information, texting, “Feed me.”
Meadow has pleaded not guilty to the eight charges he is facing. Lawyers for Meadow and Spartan declined to comment, as did a spokeswoman for Morgan Stanley, and a lawyer for Teixeira didn’t respond to requests for comment.
In 2022, the Securities and Exchange Commission settled with a New Jersey man who it accused of illegally trading on inside information he heard when his domestic partner, who worked in marketing for an IT company, participated in calls from home, including an 11:30 p.m. videoconference in a home-office adjacent to their bedroom. Although he typically discussed his trades with her, in this case he hid them, executing the transactions from his work office, the SEC said. The man, who didn’t admit wrongdoing, paid $180,000.
One thing hasn’t changed since the earliest days of pillow talk: It is usually the men who can’t resist the urge to take advantage of their confidential information.
“Insider trading is an equal opportunity crime,” said Dixie Johnson, a partner at law firm King & Spalding who advises companies on how to avoid such situations. “But the cases we see usually have involved men doing the trading.”
Not that female romantic partners have always been innocent bystanders. In 2002, adult-movie actress Kathryn Gannon, known on screen as Marylin Star, pleaded guilty to trading on tips from an investment bank CEO with whom she was having an affair. She was sentenced to three months in prison.
A decade later, former beauty queen turned hedge-fund consultant Danielle Chiesi pleaded guilty to securities fraud for her role in a sprawling insider-trading ring. In a sentencing submission, she blamed a toxic relationship with her boss—and lover of 20 years—who urged her to get inside information.
One challenge for prosecutors is determining whether the partner who is privy to the information was in on the crime, said former federal prosecutor Brendan Quigley.
“Do they say, ‘Oh, my God, I would never give information to my spouse or significant other?’ It depends not only on what actually happened, but also on the nature of their relationship,” said Quigley, who prosecuted insider-trading cases in Manhattan.
For defense lawyers, pillow-talk cases can be difficult to handle at trial, particularly if one partner testifies against another. “To a juror, this is the bad boyfriend,” said Imperatore, the defense attorney. “He’s acting badly in a relationship in a way that goes beyond the four corners of insider trading.”
Not surprisingly, many such relationships don’t survive. Teixeira and his girlfriend split up, as did Markin and his.
Former Playboy CEO Christie Hefner and her husband, William Marovitz, divorced about a year after the SEC accused him of illegally trading Playboy stock based on information gleaned from his wife—despite her explicit instructions not to. Marovitz didn’t admit wrongdoing in a 2011 settlement.
One woman whose husband recently settled insider-trading charges involving confidential information related to her employer said coping with the allegations strengthened their bond.
“It felt like an injustice,” said the woman, who wasn’t identified in court papers. “It brought us closer together.”
Copyright 2020, Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. LEARN MORE
Following the successful launch of its Palais Collection, MAISON de SABRÉ has unveiled a new modular handbag system offering more than 720 styling combinations.
Automobili Lamborghini and Babolat have expanded their collaboration with five new colourways for the ultra-exclusive BL.001 racket, limited to just 50 pieces worldwide.
With US$40 million already committed, the Global Talent Fund is attracting investor attention with a strategy focused on building globally scalable consumer brands alongside high-profile talent.
2 min
A new investment fund targeting celebrity-founded consumer brands has secured US$40 million in commitments and is rapidly approaching its US$50 million fundraising target, signalling growing investor appetite for alternative opportunities beyond traditional asset classes.
The Global Talent Fund, which has a maximum raise of US$100 million, focuses on building and investing in consumer businesses alongside celebrities, athletes, and influential personalities who play an active role as co-founders rather than simply endorsing products.
The strategy is based on the belief that changes in consumer behaviour, particularly the rise of social media and digital engagement, have fundamentally altered how brands are built and scaled.
GTF founding partner Jeremy Hunt, who is helping lead the fund’s strategy, said consumers increasingly feel connected to personalities they follow online and are more willing to support products developed by those individuals.
“Consumers are searching for content to engage with, and when a celebrity they like or follow takes them on the journey of creating a product or brand, they genuinely feel part of that process,” he said.
The fund is targeting high-growth consumer sectors including wellness, hydration, beauty and recovery, areas Hunt believes continue to benefit from strong global demand and ongoing innovation.
Rather than backing celebrity endorsement deals, the fund is seeking businesses where talent is deeply involved in product development, brand creation and long-term growth.
According to Hunt, authenticity remains one of the biggest differentiators between successful celebrity-backed brands and those that fail.
“The consumer can see clearly if someone is simply being paid to promote a product,” he said. “The winners are typically the brands where the celebrity has genuinely helped build the business from the ground up.”
The model has attracted support from several prominent Australian investors and business families, reflecting broader interest in alternative investments with global growth potential.
Hunt said consumer brands offered a level of tangibility that many investors found appealing.
“Consumer brands are what we touch, feel, smell and taste every day,” he said. “Our investors understand the growth potential in the model, but they also want to be part of the journey.”
The fund’s rapid progress towards its fundraising target comes amid growing recognition that celebrity influence, when combined with strong commercial execution and scalable business models, can create significant enterprise value.
With several high-profile celebrity-founded businesses generating billion-dollar exits in recent years, supporters of the strategy believe the opportunity remains in its early stages.
