Advisor Charged With Securities Fraud in Insider Trading Scheme

What You Need to Know

An advisor allegedly used inside information from a friend who worked at a publicly traded company to profit from an upcoming acquisition.
The Department of Justice and SEC charged the advisor with securities fraud in separate actions.
The SEC also named the advisor’s friend as a defendant in its action.

A registered advisor and broker was charged on Tuesday with securities fraud by both the Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in Oakland for allegedly trading on nonpublic information.

The Department of Justice said it has charged John Mendes, 39, formerly of Oakland and now a Philadelphia resident, with securities fraud. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a fine of $5 million. If convicted, he will also be required to pay restitution.

Mendes had been serving as an advisor or broker for Independent Financial Group but the broker-dealer said Wednesday he was “no longer affiliated” with the firm.

Mendes has been a registered broker since 2008, when he joined MassMutual, according to his report on the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s BrokerCheck website. He left that firm in 2010 to join Princor Financial Services, which he left in 2012. Mendes joined Independent Financial Group one year later and is still working with the firm, according to BrokerCheck.

Mendes and the firm did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.

In the criminal action by DOJ, Mendes was charged in a federal information that stated he learned nonpublic information from his friend, identified in the information only as “Insider One.” (The friend, however, was identified in the parallel SEC action as Andre Dabbaghian.)

At the time, the friend worked for Granite Construction, a publicly traded construction materials company focused on large public and private infrastructure projects, headquartered in Watsonville, California, according to DOJ.

In 2018, Granite acquired Layne Christensen Co., a water management, construction and drilling company that was based at the time in The Woodlands, Texas, and was publicly traded until the acquisition, DOJ noted. Granite publicly announced an agreement to buy Layne on Feb. 14, 2018.

“Insider One actively worked on the acquisition and learned material non-public information regarding the deal prior to any public disclosure of the potential acquisition,” according to DOJ.

“As a requirement of Insider One’s employment,” he received training in and “agreed to by bound by Granite’s policies and procedures,” which prohibited insider trading and improper disclosure of material nonpublic information, DOJ said.