A U.S. court in New York has found retired Croatian citizen Sonja Antičević guilty of participating in illegal stock trading, known as the Reebok affair, and has imposed a monetary penalty of $5.7 million (27.7 million kuna) which covers both illegal profits and penalties for her involvement in unlawful trading, U.S. media reports.
Judge Kimba Wood ruled on Monday that Sonja Antičević must return $2.63 million, which she gained through illegal stock trading, and must pay a fine of $3.08 million. The “Reebok” case, in which a group of suspects bought shares of the company based on confidential information about business plans and then sold them after their price increased, was uncovered in 2005. Prosecutors stated during the trial that they traded based on tips about company mergers, which included Adidas’s acquisition of the competing company Reebok International Ltd. Sonja Antičević, who was 63 at the time, was accused of having two brokerage accounts opened in her name that were used for illegal trading.
Former Goldman broker David Pajčin, Sonja Antičević’s nephew, and his colleague Eugene Plotkin, who devised the fraud, stated in court that they feel guilty for their role and illegal profits of $6.7 million. “The facts indicate that Antičević played an important role by facilitating Pajčin in covering up traces of trading based on confidential information. However, Antičević was not one of the main perpetrators and did not illegally trade or transmit any confidential information herself,” the judge said in explaining the verdict, adding that unlike others involved in the fraud, Antičević was involved in only five of the ten counts of the indictment. “Therefore, although it is clear that Antičević is guilty, the level of her involvement does not warrant the imposition of the maximum possible penalty,” the judge concluded. Sonja Antičević, a retired seamstress from Omiš, did not appear at the trial.
