A 27-year-old from Rockaway Township, New Jersey, has been indicted on federal securities fraud charges after allegedly stealing merger-and-acquisition intelligence from his girlfriend’s work laptop and using it to pocket more than $2.7 million in illegal trading profits.
Justin Jennings, a former professional soccer player and owner of a Wyoming-incorporated trading firm called Vortex Strategies LLC, was charged on June 23 with one count of engaging in a securities fraud scheme and eight separate counts of securities fraud tied to insider trading. The SEC filed a parallel civil complaint the same day.
The alleged scheme
According to the indictment unsealed in New Jersey, Jennings accessed material nonpublic information, known in regulatory shorthand as MNPI, from the laptop of his girlfriend, who worked at an investor relations firm. The key detail: prosecutors say she never gave him permission to do so.
Over a stretch of more than two years, from February 2022 to October 2024, Jennings allegedly traded securities of eight public companies using that confidential information. Among the names mentioned in court filings are Apollo Global Management and Discover Financial Services, both of which were involved in significant M&A activity during that period.
The trades were executed through both personal brokerage accounts and accounts tied to Vortex Strategies LLC, the trading entity Jennings incorporated in Wyoming.
What he’s facing
The criminal exposure here is significant. The securities fraud scheme count alone carries a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison. Each of the eight insider trading counts carries up to 20 years. Additional money laundering counts could add another 10 years per count.
On the civil side, the SEC’s complaint seeks permanent injunctions barring Jennings from similar conduct, full disgorgement of his trading profits, and additional civil penalties.
Jennings is scheduled for arraignment on July 15 in Newark, New Jersey. The investigation was conducted jointly by FINRA, the self-regulatory body overseeing broker-dealers, and the FBI.