Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced today that SETH MARKIN was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos to 15 months in prison for his participation in a scheme to trade in stock of Pandion Therapeutics (“Pandion”) based on material, non-public information that he misappropriated from his then-girlfriend and stole from her employer, a major law firm where his then-girlfriend was an attorney assigned to work on the acquisition of Pandion by Merck & Co. (“Merck”). MARKIN was arrested in July 2022 and pled guilty to securities fraud based on insider trading on December 4, 2023.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “Seth Markin betrayed the trust of his then-girlfriend when he misappropriated confidential information, traded based on that information, and tipped several friends and family members. Markin knew his actions were wrong and lied, repeatedly, to try to cover up his scheme. Markin, who had been accepted into the FBI as a new agent trainee at the time of his conduct, finds himself in a complete reversal of fortune — instead of investigating crimes, he’ll now spend time in prison. Today’s sentence should serve as a stark reminder that, no matter who you are, if you try to cheat the system by stealing and trading based on material, non-public information, you will be punished.”
As alleged in the Indictment, other public court documents, and statements made during court proceedings:
In early 2021, SETH MARKIN and BRANDON WONG together made more than $1.4 million dollars in illegal profits by trading in stock based on inside information that MARKIN stole from his then-girlfriend, who was at the time an attorney at a major law firm in Washington D.C. (the “Law Firm Associate”). At the time, MARKIN had been accepted into the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) as a new agent trainee, and WONG was a systems analyst at an education company. In February 2021, MARKIN secretly looked through the Law Firm Associate’s confidential work documents, without her permission, and learned that, in a matter of weeks, Merck, a publicly traded pharmaceutical company, was going to acquire Pandion, a publicly traded biotechnology company, for approximately three times the value of Pandion’s share price. MARKIN immediately purchased Pandion stock on the basis of this material, non-public information and also told several family members and friends to purchase Pandion’s stock, causing WONG, another friend, and several family members to do so, including Family Member-1, Family Member-2, Family Member-3, Family Member-4, and Friend-1. In text messages, MARKIN assured WONG that he was “not uncertain” that when the “news drop[ped]” about Pandion, the price would “EXPLODE,” and they would earn “triple gains.”
WONG purchased hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of Pandion shares based on the material, non-public information he received from MARKIN. In addition to his purchases of Pandion stock, WONG told at least seven other people to purchase Pandion shares, causing some of the people he tipped to purchase tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of Pandion stock, including Family Member-5, Friend-2, Friend-3, Friend-4, Friend-5, Friend-6, and Friend-7.