A former Lehman Brothers broker was charged yesterday in a $4.8 million insider trading scheme built on his PR-exec wife’s knowledge of upcoming mergers, the AP reports. Matthew Devlin passed information to friends and associates (including former Playboy model Maria Checa), and won cash, luxury goods, and tuition for a Porsche driving school in return, the SEC said. His antics earned the couple the nickname “the golden goose.”
Devlin took the information from his wife without her knowledge, and she has not been “implicated in any way,” said her firm, Brunswick Group, noting a “violation of trust between husband and wife.” Devlin pleaded guilty to a fraud conspiracy and securities fraud on Tuesday in a bid for a lighter sentence. Another ex-Lehman broker was charged with conspiracy in the case; his lawyer called his role “highly minimal.”
(More Lehman Brothers stories.)