On June 7, 2021, Oregon resident, Mark Joseph Ahn, a former consultant for biopharmaceutical company Abeona Therapeutics, Inc., was sentenced for his role in an insider trading scheme involving the acquisition of Dimension Therapeutics Inc., a publicly-traded biotech firm, after pleading guilty to two counts of securities fraud on March 2, 2021. Ahn was sentenced in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts to six months in prison, six months of home detention, two years of supervised release, and required to pay $5,500 fine and forfeit almost $50,000, with restitution to be determined at a later date.
According to court documents, in 2017, Ahn, who was acting as a consultant for Abeona, allegedly purchased Dimension stock after obtaining confidential information about the company. Dimension was ultimately not acquired by Abeona; however, when the acquisition was announced in August 2017, the stock increased 262% in one day, allegedly enabling Ahn to realize a profit of nearly $49,000.
A final judgment was issued against Ahn on April 28, 2021 in a separate civil action filed by the SEC, that prohibits Ahn from acting as an officer or director of any issuer covered by Section 12 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and enjoins him from committing further violations of Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act, 15 USC § 78j(b) and Rule 10b-5 thereunder, 17 CFR § 240.10b-5.