The SEC Charges MA-Based Portfolio Manager with Diverting Millions to Personal Account

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged a Massachusetts-based portfolio manager, Kevin J. Amell, with fraud amid allegations that he diverted nearly $2 million from an account over which he had trading authority (the Fund) to his personal brokerage account.  In a parallel action, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts has also filed criminal charges against Mr. Amell. According to the SEC complaint, Kevin Amell abused his trading authority at least 265 times by pre-arranging the purchase or sale of call options between his personal brokerage account and the Fund’s brokerage accounts.  The complaint alleges that Mr. Amell matched trades wherein he profited by either buying call options at artificially lower prices and selling them shortly thereafter at higher prices to third parties; or by purchasing call options from third parties and selling them shortly thereafter to the Fund at artificially high prices.  In one example, the SEC’s complaint alleges that, in a series of trades involving Amazon securities, Mr. Amell allegedly generated a profit of $23,000 for himself in less than 23 minutes at the Fund’s expense.

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SEC Charges Former Bancorp Board Member with Insider Trading

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed suit against Anthony Andrade of Rehoboth, Massachusetts alleging that he illegally tipped inside information to three friends and business associates about Bancorp Rhode Island’s (Bancorp RI) potential acquisition. The SEC alleged that the three friends traded based upon the information Mr. Andrade provided for them and profited when Bancorp RI’s stock price increased. The SEC alleged that Mr. Andrade breached his fiduciary duty by providing material that was not public information to his friends and business associates. All of the people he provided this information to knew that he was a member of Bancorp RI’s board of directors and that Mr. Andrade had no business purpose for providing them with this information.

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