Trader is jailed in a $47 million case flagged by the controversial SEC tracker

The Oregon retiree, who conspired with Nuveen LLC traders to profit from a confidential market order, was sentenced to a year in prison on Monday and closed a $47 million insider trading case.

Alan Williams, 79, appeared before us, District Judge Paul Gardeff in Manhattan. Sutro & Co in San Francisco. Williams, who ran the trades at the company, admitted last year that he made thousands of timely stock bets using insider tips from former Nuveen trader Lawrence Billimek.

Gardeff pointed out that Williams helped prosecutors build a lawsuit against Bilimek, but said the scope of the illegal trade sentenced him without prison time.

Billimek, 54, pleaded guilty in 2023 and was sentenced to five years and 10 months in May. From 2018 to 2023, he shared details of Nuveen’s planned purchases and sales with Williams, allowing retirees to reflect their positions before the company’s own transactions moved prices.

According to investigators, Williams ran 1,697 stock transactions flagged by the integrated audit trail or CAT, a database that can record as many as 500 billion trade events every day.

The SEC found Williams enjoyed a 97% “winning rate” during five years of stretching. Legal scholars argued that such patterns could not have been discovered without a fundamental record of cats.

SEC’s trade tracking tools face resistance

Citadel Securities LLC and the American Securities Association sued the SEC in 2023, claiming that regulators lacked approval from Congress to run the database.

Republican lawmakers reflected these concerns and warned that cats might expose investors’ personal or political information. Donald Trump’s return to the White House and the publication of the conservative “Project 2025” policy blueprints drive discussion within the committee.

Paul Atkins, who was sworn as SEC chairman last week, told the senator at the hearing that CAT costs have been “increased” and that its scope has been “type of evicting.” He ordered a review of the project.

Even before Atkins took office, lobbying for the financial industry began. The SEC has already removed direct personal identifiers such as names and birth year from cat data. In February, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association urged the committee to halt fee collection tied to the system while the future is being determined.

The CAT recently caused two more enforcement actions

In addition to Nuveen Matter, the SEC admits that the CAT has caused two other recent enforcement actions. In November, a Federal Reserve examiner pleaded guilty to a secret transaction involving a company he overseen.

The following month, Florida day traders resolved claims that they used thousands of fake “spoofing” orders to fine-tune thinly traded stocks.

Standing in front of Judge Gardeff on Monday, Williams, who advanced Parkinson’s disease, added, “I am embarrassed and embarrassed,” adding, “to the court, my family, to the staff and clients of Neuveen.”

Federal guidelines were called for 57-71 months. The maximum possible period was 75 years, but such penalties are rare in white-collar cases. Prosecutors said the pair used prepaid “burner” phones to avoid detection. On the morning of August 2022, they made more than $55,000 by shortening their shares in Match Group Inc. just before Nuveen dropped the big block.

Williams asked the judge to save him from the prison, calling him “a rare decent and gave him to others.” Gardev rejected the plea, citing the “blatant nature” of fraud and the vast amount of illegal transactions.

Under the forfeiture order filed later Monday, Williams agreed to waive more than $35 million on accounts of Charles Schwab Corporation and JPMorgan Chase & Company.