Federal authorities are seeking information from two companies in connection with the insider-trading investigation involving golfer Phil Mickelson and investor Carl Icahn, a new report says.
The investigation is being conducted by the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission, and is targeting Dean Foods and Clorox, and the actions of William Walters, a Las Vegas sports gambler with ties to Icahn and Mickelson, according to The Wall Street Journal.
In the case of Dean Foods, authorities are probing whether Walters provided stock tips to Mickelson, sources told the Journal.
In the case of Clorox, investigators are looking into whether Icahn tipped Walters about his actions involving the company, the sources said.
Dean Foods also is doing its own investigation of the matter.
“We are reviewing this matter, and our practice is to offer our full support to any government investigation,” the company said in a statement.
Walters, Icahn and Mickelson have all denied any wrongdoing. None of the men has been charged.
Although Mickelson was cleared on the Clorox trades, he is still in the rough with Dean Foods.
The FBI, federal prosecutors in Manhattan and the SEC continue to investigate well-timed trades made by Mickelson and Walters in shares of Dean Foods in the summer of 2012, according to the report.
The feds even sent two FBI agents to harass Mickelson at the golf course last month.
Clorox was among the stocks US authorities were examining as part of a three-year investigation into well-timed trades by Mickelson and Walters.
Authorities believed Icahn may have shared details about his stock dealings with Walters, who later passed on the information to Mickelson.
The investigation involved Icahn’s attempted $10.2 billion takeover of Clorox in July 2011.
Icahn says he has never given out any inside information during his 53-year Wall Street career. He says he knows Walters but has never met Mickelson.
Mickelson sometimes hits the links with Walters, a legendary sports bettor who buys and sells golf courses and is a big player in Las Vegas real estate.
In 2011, Walters told “60 Minutes” he once won $1 million betting on a round of golf — and lost it all later in the day playing blackjack at a Vegas casino.
In that same interview, Walters said he had run into many more thieves on Wall Street than in casinos.