Sonja Anticevic, et al.

U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Litigation Release No. 20976 / March 27, 2009

Securities and Exchange Commission v. Sonja Anticevic, et al., 05 Civ. 6991 (KMW) (S.D.N.Y.)

Court Enters Final Consent Judgments Against Shuster, Renteria, and Vujovic in Widespread Insider Trading Scheme

On March 26, 2009, the Honorable Kimba M. Wood, Chief United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York, entered final consent judgments against defendants Nickolaus Shuster, Juan C. Renteria, Jr. and Monika Vujovic, in an action filed in 2005 by the Commission, charging 17 defendants with collectively engaging in a insider trading scheme, which netted almost $7 million in illicit gains, through trading in at least 26 stocks.

As alleged in the Fourth Amended Complaint, Shuster and Renteria were hired by the two primary architects of the insider trading schemes, David Pajcin and Eugene Plotkin, to obtain jobs at Quad/Graphics, Inc., a printing plant for BusinessWeek magazine. Pursuant to the scheme, Shuster and Renteria called Pajcin and Plotkin, and read them key portions of the "Inside Wall Street" column â€" a widely-read column that generally moves the price of the securities of companies mentioned in it â€" prior to the time the column was made available to the public. As a result of the information provided, Pajcin and Plotkin traded in, and/or tipped others with material non-public information concerning at least 10 companies, resulting in collective ill-gotten gains of approximately $280,000. Pajcin and Plotkin paid Renteria approximately $5,000 and paid Shuster approximately $20,000 for the information. The Court entered orders permanently enjoining both Shuster and Renteria from further violations of Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder.

As alleged in the Fourth Amended Complaint, Vujovic, who was dating Pajcin at the time, allowed Pajcin to open a brokerage account in her name at Ameritrade, Inc. and to engage in insider trading through that account in order to avoid detection. Pajcin executed trades from this account based on material non-public information he received stemming from BusinessWeek, as well as Merrill Lynch, collectively making over $314,000 in ill-gotten gains. The Court entered an order permanently enjoining Vujovic from further violations of Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder and further found Vujovic liable to pay disgorgement of $261,364.12, to be satisfied by payment of all funds in a brokerage account held in Vujovic's name at TD Ameritrade, Inc., which had been frozen since 2005 pursuant to a Court order.

For further information, see Litigation Release No. 19327 (August 5, 2005), Litigation Release No. 19340 (August 19, 2005), Litigation Release No. 19374 (September 14, 2005), Litigation Release No. 19775 (July 26, 2006), Litigation Release No. 19696 (May 11, 2006), Litigation Release No. 19650 (April 11, 2006), Litigation Release No. 19966 (January 12, 2007), Litigation Release No. 20607 (June 2, 2008).