CHICAGO — A federal judge today sentenced a suburban Chicago woman to a year in prison for using insider information obtained from her husband to purchase shares of a company ahead of its acquisition by the husband’s employer.
DENISE GREVAS, 60, of Evanston, Ill., pleaded guilty last year to a securities fraud charge. In addition to the year-and-a-day prison sentence, U.S. District Judge Harry D. Leinenweber fined Grevas $100,000.
The sentence was announced by John R. Lausch, Jr., United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; and Emmerson Buie, Jr., Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Office of the FBI. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which filed a civil enforcement action against Grevas, provided valuable assistance. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jared Hasten and Jason Yonan represented the government in the criminal case.
Grevas admitted in a plea agreement that she made $286,960 in illegal profits from the purchase and sale of securities in a Washington state-based pharmaceutical company, which was a target for acquisition and later acquired by a foreign pharmaceutical company that employed Grevas’s husband. Grevas used material, non-public information about the expected acquisition to purchase shares in the Washington company ahead of a public announcement of the acquisition on Sept. 16, 2019. After the announcement, the Washington company’s stock price increased and Grevas sold the shares for the profit.