Oregon Retiree Sentenced to Prison in $47M Insider Trading Case

An Oregon retiree was sentenced to one year in prison for his role in a $47 million insider trading scheme involving confidential market orders. Alan Williams, 79, conspired with Lawrence Billimek, a former trader at Nuveen LLC, to profit from non-public information about planned stock purchases.

Williams, who previously headed trading at Sutro & Co., admitted to leveraging tips from Billimek to execute thousands of timely trades. Despite cooperating with prosecutors, the scale of illicit activity necessitated jail time, according to U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe.

Billimek received a nearly six-year sentence in May after pleading guilty last year. The case, flagged by the SEC’s controversial monitoring systems, underscores regulatory scrutiny over market abuse.