In a clear-cut case of someone playing the system, a Gibsonia man has been handed a one-year prison sentence for securities fraud involving insider trading of Dick's Sporting Goods stocks. The announcement came from United States Attorney Eric G. Olshan. Frank T. Poerio Jr., age 63, was also sentenced to three months of home detention and a subsequent 12 months of supervised release after his prison term concludes.
Poerio's crimes were not the sophisticated, cloak-and-dagger variety one might imagine, but they were lucrative, netting him over $800,000. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, between August 2019 and May 2021, Poerio executed 160 trades by leveraging material non-public information he acquired from an associate working at Dick's Sporting Goods corporate office. This information was not supposed to be in the public domain—and certainly not used for trading.
The sentence was delivered by United States District Judge Marilyn J. Horan, who also ordered Poerio to shell out a $20,000 fine and, perhaps more painfully, restitution totaling $823,367 to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. This amount aligns with the profits he had wrongfully earned from his illicit dealings in the company’s securities, as outlined in the court proceedings.
In the lead-up to the sentencing, Poerio pleaded guilty to the charges back in July 2024, acknowledging the weight of evidence against him. Poerio's exploitation of sensitive data improperly obtained from an employee at Dick's during periods when trading should have been off-limits exposes a brazen disregard for the rules that level the playing field for all investors. Assistant United States Attorney Gregory C. Melucci led the prosecution on behalf of the government, driving home the seriousness of such white-collar crimes.
