A former marketing executive at AT&T has pleaded guilty to charges related to an insider trading scheme in which he leaked sales information about Apple’s iPhone and Research In Motion’s BlackBerry devices to members of an investment community.
Alnoor Ebrahim, 57, of Alpharetta, Georgia, pleaded guilty Monday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Ebrahim provided nonpublic information about device sales to members of an investment community, described as an expert networking firm, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
Ebrahim provided information to the firm’s clients between 2008 and 2010, the DOJ said. He and co-conspirators used the networking firm to make “consultation calls” with clients, many of whom were employees of New York investment firms, the DOJ said. The firm, not named by the DOJ, paid Ebrahim more than US$180,000 for the consultation calls, the DOJ said.
Ebrahim, who was an associate director of channel marketing at AT&T, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, and wire fraud.
The conspiracy count carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. Ebrahim also faces a fine of $250,000, or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense on the conspiracy count. He has agreed, as part of his plea agreement, to forfeit the proceeds he obtained during the conspiracy, the DOJ said.
Ebrahim is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 25.
Grant Gross covers technology and telecom policy in the U.S. government for The IDG News Service. Follow Grant on Twitter at GrantGross. Grant’s e-mail address is grant_gross@idg.com.