Baseball Hall of Famer Eddie Murray has agreed to pay $358,151 to resolve US regulatory claims that he reaped illegal profits from an insider-trading scheme involving his former Baltimore Orioles teammate Doug DeCinces.
Murray made $235,314 in profits after Abbott Laboratories said in January 2009 it would acquire Advanced Medical Optics through a tender offer, the Securities and Exchange Commission said yesterday. DeCinces and three others agreed to pay $3.3 million last year to settle SEC claims they reaped a total of $1.7 million, the agency said.
In addition to Murray, 56, who was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2003 as only the third player to collect both 3,000 hits and 500 home runs, the SEC filed claims yesterday in federal court in California against James Mazzo, 55, who was chairman and chief executive officer of Advanced Medical Optics, and David L. Parker, 60, a Utah businessman identified as a friend of DeCinces.
“Mazzo had repeated personal contacts and communications with DeCinces, who promptly traded and tipped Murray, Parker and others that a deal involving Mazzo’s company was imminent,” Daniel M. Hawke, chief of the SEC Enforcement Division’s Market Abuse Unit, said in a statement issued by the agency.
Murray’s lawyer Michael Proctor didn’t immediately respond to a call seeking comment, nor did Richard Marmaro, a lawyer representing Mazzo.