A former Spartan Capital Securities broker admitted to insider trading based upon sensitive merger information stolen by a friend from his girlfriend’s computer while the pair were working at home during the pandemic.
The ex-broker, Jordan Meadow, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to charges including securities fraud and conspiracy before U.S. District Judge Andrew L. Carter Jr. in New York as part of a plea deal with prosecutors. Meadow was one of more than a half-dozen people charged in June 2023 by federal prosecutors in Manhattan as part of a crackdown on insider trading.
The case was also one of several involving confidential information misappropriated from romantic partners working in close quarters during the pandemic.
A former FBI trainee, Seth Markin, pleaded guilty in December 2023 to trading on confidential information he learned from his former girlfriend about Merck & Co.’s 2021 takeover of Pandion Therapeutics Inc. and was sentenced to 15 months in prison in March 2024. A month earlier, a Texas man pleaded guilty to securities fraud for making almost $2 million from information he learned about an acquisition target of BP Plc from listening to his wife’s conversations with colleagues. He got two years in prison.
Meadow’s friend, Steven Teixeira, pleaded guilty earlier in the case and agreed to cooperate with the government. He is scheduled to be sentenced in January.
On Wednesday, Meadow admitted he traded on material non-public information that he had gotten from Teixeira between November 2020 and April 2023 that had been taken from the laptop of his girlfriend, an executive assistant at an unidentified investment bank, and agreed to provide gifts including Rolex watches in exchange.
While the bank that employed Teixeira’s girlfriend wasn’t identified by prosecutors, the Wall Street Journal earlier reported that the woman was a former Morgan Stanley employee. Meadow admitted that he traded on tips about deals including Penn National Gaming’s $2.2 billion takeover of Score Media and Gaming in 2021 and Broadcom Inc.’s proposed takeover of VMware Inc., which prosecutors said was worth $65 billion.
Meadow said he also tipped a coworker and another person outside the office, and traded on the information in both his personal accounts and those of clients at his firm. He also admitted submitting false information to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
In his Penn National trading, Meadow allegedly bought more than 769 call option contracts before the deal was announced, eventually generating more than $5 million in profits for his clients, according to prosecutors. Meadow bought over 5,000 shares of VMWare stock and call options contracts and tipped a colleague to also buy the shares, and they eventually sold their holdings for a combined profit of more than $100,000.
Meadow, 36, of Warren, New Jersey, faced as long as 25 years in prison if convicted at trial of the most serious charge against him. He is scheduled to be sentenced on May 14.
The case is US v Meadow, 23-cr-313, US District Court, Southern District of New York.
Credit: Shutterstock
Copyright 2025 Bloomberg. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
© Touchpoint Markets, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to TMSalesOperations@arc-network.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.