The SEC called the scheme “brazen.” The defendant’s own lawyer called it “laughable,” “harebrained,” “crazy” and “stupid,” and declared that it “had to fail from the outset.” Those are just some of the adjectives and reactions that emerge when you and your girlfriend, an administrative assistant to a high-level Disney executive, send “anonymous letters in March 2010 to more than 20 hedge funds in the U.S. and Europe, offering to provide pre-release results of Disney’s second quarter 2010 earnings in exchange for a fee.” As you may recall, several of the hedge funds promptly alerted the authorities, which set up an undercover operation that quickly foiled this plan.
