indictment in March 2024<\/a>, and the Securities and Exchange Commission also filed a civil insider trading lawsuit against the trio. Qsar and Witherspoon resolved the SEC lawsuit by paying the illegally obtained dollar amount plus interest, according to court records, but Bernard has not yet paid it back, due to financial struggles as he seeks employment, he told the judge Friday.<\/p>\nAccording to the SEC, before Jack in the Box bought Del Taco in December 2021 for $575 million, the four purchased stock in Del Taco, and when the acquisition was publicized, Del Taco\u2019s stock increased by 66%.<\/p>\n
Qsar apologized in both a letter to the judge and during the sentencing hearing Friday. He said he has a full-time job in technology sales and coaches youth baseball, trying to instill good character in young athletes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no version of this where I was not wrong, and I have stopped looking for one. I think about it constantly, and I am ashamed of it,\u201d Qsar wrote in a letter, which he read aloud in court. \u201cMy wife and my family have had to carry the embarrassment and pain of my decision, and watching them do that has been the hardest part of all of this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Qsar profited about $56,000 from the crime and paid about $120,000.<\/p>\n
Witherspoon works for a small start-up company in sales and went back to college for his chemical engineering degree. He said in his letter to Sabraw that he\u2019s faced hurdles in landing a job in that field.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince this became public, I have told every potential employer about my involvement up front, and I have been turned down because of it,\u201d Witherspoon wrote. \u201cI put myself in this position, and I am the one who has to work my way out of it. I am doing that the only way I know how, which is by outworking it and taking accountability every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Witherspoon profited about $42,000 and paid about $94,000.<\/p>\n
Chopra, the prosecutor, said in the sentencing memorandum that the three likely committed the offense \u201cout of greed and recklessness.\u201d However, defense attorney Marc Levinson said \u201cthis really wasn\u2019t the case\u201d for Bernard, a Valley Center native.<\/p>\n
In a sentencing memorandum, Levinson said Bernard, who played minors for the Colorado Rockies, faced financial struggles during his baseball career. He received a $72,000 signing bonus, then made about $600 to $700 biweekly. Like most minor league players, he was responsible for his temporary housing in whatever city he was assigned. He also had a wrist injury at the time of his crime, which led him to uncertainty about the future of his career.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe image of a \u2018professional baseball player\u2019 can be misleading,\u201d Levinson wrote. \u201cThis offense occurred when Mr. Bernard was especially vulnerable to the lure of easier money. \u2026 Mr. Bernard was a professional baseball player making poverty-level wages.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI took an unfair advantage that I wasn\u2019t entitled to, and I regret that,\u201d Bernard told\u00a0Sabraw Friday. \u201cI will do everything I can to be someone my family can be proud of again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sabraw said this was a \u201cvictimless crime,\u201d but a serious matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three former minor league baseball players who collectively netted about $189,000 in illegal profits from Jack in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[387,7,1312,138,181,23,100,3054,74,84,76,75,1696],"class_list":["post-420035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-business","tag-california","tag-courts","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-north-county","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-county","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}