Federal Allegations of Abetting Fraud Settled

The Securities and Exchange Commission said Tuesday that Richard W. DeBoe agreed to pay $24,517 to settle federal allegations that he abetted fraud by Peter N. Brant, who pleaded guilty a decade earlier of using unpublished Wall Street Journal columns for insider trading.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ordered the payment in a June 26 judgment that also bars DeBoe from future violations of securities rules, the SEC said in a statement. In a separate proceeding, the SEC banned DeBoe from working at a securities or money management firm.

The agency alleged in March last year that DeBoe, while employed as a broker at Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown in the 1990s, allowed Brant to manage investment client accounts even though Brant had been barred from the securities industry. The SEC also said that DeBoe helped Brant, a friend and former colleague at Kidder Peabody & Co., churn the accounts and take money for personal use.

DeBoe didn’t deny or admit guilt in agreeing to the court judgment and the SEC order.

Brant, a onetime top trader at Kidder Peabody, conspired with former Wall Street Journal reporter R. Foster Winans to profit from information that later appeared in the newspaper’s “Heard on the Street” column. Brant became a government witness against Winans. He pleaded guilty in 1984, served eight months in prison and paid a $10,000 fine.