BOSTON – A Chatham man pleaded guilty today in federal court in Boston to securities fraud for trading on inside information about a Massachusetts semiconductor company’s planned acquisition of a California semiconductor company.
Gregory Manning, 60, formerly of Needham, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and one count of securities fraud. U.S. District Court Judge Allison D. Burroughs scheduled sentencing for Jan. 3, 2024. Manning was charged in January 2020 along with co-defendants John Younis and David Forte.
In or around June 2016, Forte ¬obtained material non-public information from his brother who was a senior executive at Analog Devices, Inc. (Analog), a Norwood-based semiconductor company, about Analog’s planned acquisition of Linear Technology Corp. (Linear), a semiconductor company based in Milpitas, Calif. Forte passed the information to Manning, who purchased 3,000 shares of Linear stock in the week leading up to the public announcement of the acquisition on July 26, 2016. After the deal was announced, Manning sold all of the Linear shares he had purchased in the days leading up to the announcement for a profit and later paid Forte a kickback in appreciation for Forte’s stock tip.
In June 2022, Younis was sentenced to one month of home detention and two years of probation after pleading guilty to trading in Linear securities based on the material non-public information Forte provided to him. On July 20, 2023, Forte was convicted by a federal jury of one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and one count of securities fraud. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 24, 2023.
The charge of conspiracy to commit securities fraud provides for a sentence of up to 25 years in prison, five years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss, whichever is greater. The charge of securities fraud provides for a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $5 million. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and statutes which govern the determination of a sentence in a criminal case.
Acting United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy and Jodi Cohen, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Division made the announcement today. The Securities & Exchange Commission provided valuable assistance. Assistant U.S. Attorneys David M. Holcomb and Leslie A. Wright of the Securities, Financial & Cyber Fraud Unit are prosecuting the case.