A Boston Federal Court jury convicted a Watertown man on charges that he used an insider tip to profit from the sale of a local bank.
On Thursday, Robert H. Bray, 78, was convicted in US District Court in Boston of one count of federal securities fraud, according to a Boston Globe story.
The incident occurred in 2010 at the Oakley Country Club when Bray was given a tip on a cocktail napkin from a former executive of Eastern Bank Corp. that the bank was going to buy Wainwright Bank & Trust.
Bray, who worked for and at one time owned R&B Construction, was arrested on November 2014 on the charges.
Bray sold the shares of Wainwright for a profit of about $300,000, according to Boston U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz’s office. He purchased 31,000 Wainwright shares over the two weeks after getting the tip, which accounted for about 56 percent of the total trading volume in Wainwright shares during that period.
The former Eastern Bank executive, John Patrick O’Neill, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud in US District Court in 2014, and he awaits sentencing.
Bray faces a prison sentence of up to 20 years and a fine up up to $5 million, according to the Globe.