Former Indiana congressman Stephen Buyer convicted by NYC jury in insider trading scheme

A former Indiana congressman was convicted Friday in Manhattan Federal Court for taking part in an insider trading scheme.

Ex Republican Rep. Stephen Buyer faces sentencing in July on four charges of securities fraud.

Buyer “leveraged his privileged position as a corporate advisor to twice use his clients’ material nonpublic information to commit insider trading,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement.

The scheme allegedly took place in 2018 when Buyer was working as a consultant to T-Mobile US Inc., prior to their merger with Sprint — a deal was valued at $23 billion.

Jurors found that Buyer, 64, obtained information from a T-Mobile executive that the company was headed for the merger and purchased stock that eventually yielded hundreds of thousands of dollars in illicit gains.

Authorities charged that Buyer made more than $320,000 for himself, family members, and a woman with whom he’d had an affair.

Buyer denied wrongdoing from the witness stand. His lawyers claimed that there was not enough evidence to show when he learned of the merger, and that their client relied strictly on public information to make his investing decision.

The former congressman, a Persian Gulf War vet who served in the House from 1993 to 2011, is one of several investors who were arrested in July as part of a crackdown on insider trading.

With News Wire Services