Here’s more on the Disney employee and friend’s failed crime spree. Courtesy of Jr. Deputy Accoutant.
Disney Dope Gets Busted Trying to Sell Earnings
Were Bonnie Jean Hoxie and her boyfriend stupid or just desperate?
Regardless of the motivation (we hear it’s shoes, no kidding), you have to hand it to the FBI for bidding them down before busting them. That’s got to hurt. And after all of this, the dynamic duo couldn’t even deliver Disney’s earnings, just some vague earnings per share crap. Now that’s just sad.
The SEC alleges that Bonnie Jean Hoxie and her paramour attempted to sell Disney’s second-quarter earnings ahead of their official release. The method: the two sent as many as 20 hedge funds a letter offering to provide the earnings release for a fee. The text of the letter, contained in the SEC complaint, begins:
“Hi, I have access to Disney (DIS) quarterly earnings report before its release on 5/03/10. I am willing to share this information for a fee that we can determine later….My email is XXX I count on your discretion as you can count on mine.”
One of the hedge funds notified authorities about the letter and a pair of FBI agents got in contact with Hoxie’s boyfriend, Yonni Sebbag.
At one point, Sebbag asked for a $20,000 fee. The FBI agents, who were posing as traders, bid him down.
“$15K sounds great. $30K even better as I hope you will make a killing form Q2 earnings,’’ Sebbag allegedly wrote in an email to the agents, according to the SEC complaint. They settled on $15,000.
So what about the other 19 hedge funds who failed to report this boneheaded move?
