Former head of Henderson company guilty of insider trading
The former chairman and CEO of a publicly traded Henderson health-care company has been convicted of insider trading in the first prosecution exclusively using rules limiting the use of certain trading practices.
Terren Scott Peizer, 64, a resident of Puerto Rico and Santa Monica, California, and a former chairman and CEO of Henderson-based Ontrak Inc., was found guilty Friday of one count of securities fraud and two counts of insider trading.
Peizer is expected to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer on Oct. 21. He faces a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison on the securities fraud count and up to 20 years in prison on each of the insider trading counts.
According to a company profile, Ontrak operates as an artificial intelligence powered, telehealth-enabled, and virtualized health-care company that provides in-person services to third-party payors in the United States. Its technology-enabled platform predicts people whose chronic disease will improve with behavior change, recommends effective care pathways that people are willing to follow, and engages and guides them to and through the care they need.
“When Terren Peizer learned significant negative news about Ontrak, he set up Rule 10b5-1 trading plans to sell shares before the news became public and to conceal that he was trading on inside information,” Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, said in a release.
“With today’s verdict, the jury convicted Peizer of insider trading. This is the Justice Department’s first insider trading prosecution based exclusively on the use of a trading plan, but it will not be our last. We will not let corporate executives who trade on inside information hide behind trading plans they established in bad faith.”
Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on X.