San Diego minor league baseball players are accused of stealing from the fast food merger….see more

San Diego minor league baseball players are accused of stealing from the fast food merger.

SAN DIEGO Three minor league baseball players, including a graduate of Valhalla High School who was drafted by the Tampa Bay Rays, were charged by federal prosecutors with insider trading on Tuesday. The indictment claims that the players made approximately $189,000 illegally from Jack in the Box’s 2021 acquisition of Del Taco. Along with the three, a fourth former minor leaguer was also named in a civil action brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday for insider trading.

Check out the Bellingham Herald’s article on 287124505 for additional information.

According to the SEC lawsuit and the indictment, Jordan Qsar, an El Cajon native and former baseball teammate at Pepperdine University, received the insider information in October 2021 from a close friend who worked in finance at Jack in the Box, a San Diego-based company. Qsar played in the minor leagues for the Rays and the Philadelphia Phillies. According to the SEC, the friend gave Qsar the information “in confidence and under the understanding that Qsar would not trade on the information or disclose it to others.” The friend was involved in the Del Taco acquisition.

Instead, the SEC claims that Qsar communicated the inside information with two Pepperdine teammates who were currently playing in the minor leagues: Austin Bernard and Chase Lambert, as well as Qsar’s close buddy and teammate Grant Witherspoon from the Rays minor league system. The SEC claims that all four men bought Del Taco stock in the months before to Jack in the Box’s completion of the deal in December 2021. The announcement of the deal caused Del Taco’s shares to rise 66%. “Qsar, Bernard, Witherspoon, and Lambert sold their options and made about $189,000 in combined trading profits,” claims the Securities and Exchange Commission.