On June 6, 2025, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Connecticut announced that Connecticut resident Ryan Squillante, an investment firm executive, pleaded guilty to an insider trading offense for engaging in securities trades based on material non-public information received during the course of his employment. According to the USAO, Squillante pleaded guilty to one-count of securities fraud for his role in the insider trading scheme, which allegedly generated a total profit of $220,912. He is currently scheduled to be sentenced on August 29, 2025.
According to court documents and statements made in court, Squillante worked for Colorado-based Irving Investors as the company’s Head of Equity Trading when he began trading in the securities of various publicly-traded companies for his personal benefit while in possession of MNPI. According to the USAO, Squillante engaged in unlawful securities transactions on 15 separate occasions between August 2022 and May 2023. One example of these trades occurred on or around February 27, 2023 when Squillante, as a result of his position at Irving Investors, allegedly received MNPI about Praxis Precision Medicines, Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company whose common stock traded on the NASDAQ. While allegedly in possession of MNPI regarding Praxis and “certain non-public clinical data,” Squillante “sold short” 38,086 shares of Praxis stock at an average price per share of approximately $3.04 with the expectation that the market price would fall. When Praxis publicly announced the poor results of its drug trial on March 3, 2023, Squillante allegedly “covered” the short sale by purchasing 38,086 Praxis shares at lower average price per share of approximately $1.82 – a transaction that enabled him to realize approximately $46,421 in unlawful profits.
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