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Former Apple Lawyer Gene Levoff Avoids Prison After Insider Trading Conviction

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Former Apple director of corporate law Gene Levoff was today sentenced to a fine and four years of probation for insider trading, according to Bloomberg. Levoff was facing up to two years in prison, but he will avoid time behind bars.

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Levoff's role at Apple was supposed to include ensuring that Apple employees were compliant with the company's insider trading policies, including enforcement of "blackout periods" around Apple's earnings reports, but he ended up committing the crime he was meant to police.

Due to his position, Levoff was given access to Apple's earnings results before they were made available to the public, and he used the information to buy Apple shares prior to better-than-expected results, and sell shares when there were weaker-than-expected earnings. Levoff earned around $277,000, and avoided losses of around $377,000 before he was fired by Apple in 2018.

Levoff last June pleaded guilty to six counts of securities fraud for insider trading, and his sentencing took place today. In addition to four years probation, Levoff will pay approximately $604,000.

Federal prosecutors argued that Levoff should be sent to prison for insider trading to deter other corporate executives from committing a similar crime, but the judge overseeing the case said that he didn't feel it was necessary because Levoff lost his job and will no longer be able to practice law.

Article Link: Former Apple Lawyer Gene Levoff Avoids Prison After Insider Trading Conviction
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2023/12/07/former-apple-lawyer-insider-trading-no-prison/
MacRumors said:
Levoff's role at Apple was supposed to include ensuring that Apple employees were compliant with the company's insider trading policies, including enforcement of "blackout periods" around Apple's earnings reports, but he ended up committing the crime he was meant to police.
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You were the Chosen One! It was said that you would destroy the insider traders, not join them!
 
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MacRumors said:
Federal prosecutors argued that Levoff should be sent to prison for insider trading to deter other corporate executives from committing a similar crime
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This is the problem with so many prosecutors. It’s impossible to serve justice for a particular crime when you’re trying to make an example of somebody.

By definition, making an example of somebody results in that person being dealt a punishment that does not fit the crime.

Note: I am not suggesting society goes easy on white collar crime; it is a terrible crime with real victims, I am simply advocating for justice. Inflated sentencing is a terrible disservice to any moral society and is, itself, a crime.
 
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Jokes aside, though, I wonder what made him do it. Simple greed, money problems, curiosity about whether he’d be caught? I feel like there’s an important part of the story we don’t know, since not everyone with positions that give them privileged information exploit that information.
 
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Dunno if this guy was a thrillseeker, or just irretrievably stupid - but his impatience cost him this time. Anybody could've invested in AAPL 15 years ago and made a 6000% return by now. No insider information needed...

kc9hzn said:
Jokes aside, though, I wonder what made him do it. Simple greed, money problems, curiosity about whether he’d be caught? I feel like there’s an important part of the story we don’t know, since not everyone with positions that give them privileged information exploit that information.
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Exactly.
 
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He’s lucky.

So this pretty much equates to theft from shareholders, yet he still gets no jail time.

At the end of the day, this kind of loss is still a loss, just as if he were stealing products directly from the company.

Those crimes come with more severe penalties, but the company/shareholders would be insured for this kind of loss.

In my years at Apple, including my time outside of Retail, I was privileged to both negative and positive information about the company before the release. I held this information with integrity making far less a year than he did, and I never would have considered acting on this information.

I didn’t even trade stocks until after I left the company, after all of the positive/negative information having been released already.
 
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oldMacGenius said:
He’s lucky.

So this pretty much equates to theft from shareholders, yet he still gets no jail time.

At the end of the day, this kind of loss is still a loss, just as if he were stealing products directly from the company.

Those crimes come with more severe penalties, but the company/shareholders would be insured for this kind of loss.

In my years at Apple, including my time outside of Retail, I was privileged to both negative and positive information about the company before the release. I held this information with integrity making far less a year than he did, and I never would have considered acting on this information.

I didn’t even trade stocks until after I left the company, after all of the positive/negative information having been released already.
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I doubt you were a real insider. If you were, you would have been legally restricted (by notice) via a blackout notice from selling shares.

Since you weren't, you could have sold shares as per your wont. Any information you think you had was literally only rumor and/or supposition. Not sure what your point is.

Since you weren't an insider, your stance is just your own internal compass so, I guess that's "nice" of you?
 
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MacProFCP said:
This is the problem with so many prosecutors. It’s impossible to serve justice for particular crime when you’re trying to make an example of somebody.

By definition, making an example of somebody means that that person will have a punishment that does not fit the crime.

Note: I am not suggesting society goes easy on white collar crime; it is a terrible crime with real victims, I am simply advocating for justice. Inflated sentencing is a terrible disservice to any moral society and is, itself, a crime.
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Agree. To use someone as an example after already paying fines/serving time is horrible and both the prosecutor and judge should be removed from service and have to serve time.
 
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oldMacGenius said:
He’s lucky.

So this pretty much equates to theft from shareholders, yet he still gets no jail time.

At the end of the day, this kind of loss is still a loss, just as if he were stealing products directly from the company.

Those crimes come with more severe penalties, but the company/shareholders would be insured for this kind of loss.

In my years at Apple, including my time outside of Retail, I was privileged to both negative and positive information about the company before the release. I held this information with integrity making far less a year than he did, and I never would have considered acting on this information.

I didn’t even trade stocks until after I left the company, after all of the positive/negative information having been released already.
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I worked at Apple too. I was never privileged. They may say to not share it but there’s no repucussions if you do.
 
kc9hzn said:
Jokes aside, though, I wonder what made him do it. Simple greed, money problems, curiosity about whether he’d be caught? I feel like there’s an important part of the story we don’t know, since not everyone with positions that give them privileged information exploit that information.
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Having worked at another company (not Apple), I was black listed. I would get emails of black out dates.

It’s either greed or debt, but most likely greed. See below.

The odds of getting caught are high.

I was questioned on my debt when I was hired. I said it’s my house and furniture I purchased. That was all they needed to know. My salary more than covered my payments (5-6x).

Anyone who has lots of debt doesn’t get the job or gets questioned in positions of security and privacy because they can be exchanged for financial gain.

When I became a hiring manager I was taught what to look for. Missed payments was a red flag.
 
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BipedalOS said:
Having worked at another company (not Apple), I was black listed. I would get emails of black out dates.

It’s either greed or debt, but most likely greed. See below.

The odds of getting caught are high.

I was questioned on my debt when I was hired. I said it’s my house and furniture I purchased. That was all they needed to know. My salary more than covered my payments (5-6x).

Anyone who has lots of debt doesn’t get the job or gets questioned in positions of security and privacy because they can be exchanged for financial gain.

When I became a hiring manager I was taught what to look for. Missed payments was a red flag.
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As far as debt goes, I suppose something under the table like gambling debts are always a possibility. The sort of debt that might not come up in a background check but that often tends to pile on (especially since problem gamblers often try to gamble for the money to pay off their loans and since they often have, shall we say, “motivated” creditors).
 
TestedLion said:
I doubt you were a real insider. If you were, you would have been legally restricted (by notice) via a blackout notice from selling shares.

Since you weren't, you could have sold shares as per your wont. Any information you think you had was literally only rumor and/or supposition. Not sure what your point is.

Since you weren't an insider, your stance is just your own internal compass so, I guess that's "nice" of you?
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Apple forces nondisclosure agreements on all employees. Mostly a large number of people (including retail) only have to sign just one.

It gets more complicated when there are secrets to keep, or places where specific plans, BOMs, or bug reports appear, or where you are allowed to enter a space where you find yourself observing where some of Apple’s non-production, non retail, textile and acrylics budgets goes to.

There are many levels of complexity in Apple’s secrets, and sure what had been presented to me to do the work assigned was chump change compared with what I would have found if I went looking for it on systems I had access to.

The difference here, I took “need to know basis” to heart. I didn’t want look behind the curtain, didn’t want to be disclosed on what I did not need, and didn’t want to possibly enter any kind of situation that would be compromising.

This guy took “need-to-know” to profit.
 
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