TAMPA, Fla. — A man who goes by "MillionaireMike" entered a guilty plea Thursday after the SpaceX engineer was accused of insider trading.
The Department of Justice says James Roland Jones, his real name, faces a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison for the crime. A sentencing date has not yet been announced.
According to the plea agreement, Jones conspired to commit securities fraud with another person from 2016 to 2017. He then used his moniker to purchase personally identifiable information on the dark web, according to the DOJ.
"Personally identifiable information" includes names, addresses, social security numbers and dates of birth.
That information was then used to open or operate accounts for the purpose of conducting financial transactions for insider information, the DOJ says.
In April 2017, an undercover FBI employee gave Jones what he believed to be legitimate insider information related to a publicly traded U.S. company.
"Jones and a conspirator conducted numerous securities transactions based on this purported insider information," the DOJ wrote in a release.
Later, Jones gained control of an investment account that had been fraudulently opened, according to a press release. The account was flagged for executing numerous securities transactions.
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced this week that Jones was also charged with related conduct in a federal Indiana court.
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