A former Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond official was sentenced Tuesday to 24 months in prison for misappropriating inside information from the Federal Reserve to engage in insider trading.
The defendant, Robert Brian Thompson, 43, of Moseley, worked as a bank examiner and senior manager with supervisory duties for the Federal Reserve, which gave him access to confidential information about financial institutions under the Federal Reserve's supervision, including confidential supervisory information.
According to the Department of Justice , Thompson used confidential workplace information to execute 69 trades at seven different publicly traded financial institutions totaling $771,678 from October 2020 through February 2024.
To conceal the scheme, Thompson lied on his "Form D," which, among other things, requires employees to disclose whether they have any assets, including any stock ownership in any bank that is a member of the Federal Reserve System.
"Thompson falsely stated on the FRBR Form D that he had no assets," the Justice Department stated last November in a press release.
Thompson pleaded guilty to one count of insider trading and one count of documentary misrepresentation. He faced a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on the insider trading charge, as well as five years in prison on the document fraud charge.
Prior to Thompson's sentencing on Tuesday, the Justice Department asked Judge M. Hannah Lauck to give him a sentence of 30 to 37 months.
The Federal Reserve also filed a "victim impact statement," requesting an "appropriate" sentence.