Former Apple Lawyer Pleads Guilty to Insider Trading

Gene Levoff was charged in 2019 with sifting trading tips from undisclosed earnings releases he oversaw

Gene Daniel Levoff, a former lawyer in charge of Apple’s insider-trading policies, leaving federal court in Newark, N.J., in 2019, when he was charged with violating those rules.

WASHINGTON—A former top corporate lawyer for Apple Inc. pleaded guilty Thursday to insider trading,admitting that he used access to the company’s undisclosed earnings results to reap hundreds of thousands of dollars in illicit gains, according to prosecutors.

Gene Daniel Levoff worked as Apple’s corporate secretary, a role that involved managing the company’s compliance efforts to avoid employee insider trading. Mr. Levoff also served as co-chairman of Apple’s disclosure committee, which reviewed and discussed quarterly and annual earnings reports that hadn’t been issued yet, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for New Jersey, which prosecuted the case.

As an Apple executive, Mr. Levoff had a duty to not trade on its material nonpublic information. But he made both bullish and bearish trades over five years, generating profits of $277,000 and avoiding losses of $377,000 on other transactions, according to prosecutors.

A lawyer for Mr. Levoff declined to comment.

Mr. Levoff pleaded guilty to six counts of securities fraud and will be sentenced in November, the New Jersey U.S. attorney’s office said. He faces up to 20 years in prison for each count of securities fraud.

The Securities and Exchange Commission also sued Mr. Levoff in February 2019 in civil court. The SEC’s lawsuit, which was suspended to allow the criminal case to proceed, asked a court to bar Mr. Levoff from working as an officer or director of a public company.