Stephen E. Buyer represented Indiana’s 4th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1993 to 2011. After leaving Congress he formed a consulting firm, the Steve Buyer Group, whose clients included T-Mobile. In March 2018, Buyer attended a golf outing with a T-Mobile executive and learned about the company’s then-confidential plan to acquire Sprint. He began buying Sprint securities the next day. Ahead of the merger announcement he acquired a total of $568,000 of Sprint common stock, spread across his own personal accounts, a joint account held with his cousin, and an acquaintance’s account. When news of the $26.5 billion deal leaked in April 2018, he realized an immediate profit of more than $107,000. In 2019 he purchased more than $1 million of Navigant Consulting stock ahead of its acquisition by his client Guidehouse, making more than $200,000. A federal jury convicted him in March 2023 on four counts of securities fraud, and U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman sentenced him to 22 months in prison. He served nearly two years. On August 24, 2026, the SEC filed a joint stipulation dismissing its civil case against him with prejudice.
The dismissal came roughly two months after President Trump pardoned Buyer in June 2026. In its filing the SEC offered no explanation beyond stating that it believes the dismissal of this case is appropriate. The stipulation dismisses the case with prejudice and, as is standard in these agreements, includes releases under which Buyer waives any right to seek attorney’s fees or costs from the government under the Equal Access to Justice Act and gives up the ability to sue the SEC in connection with the matter. The case, filed in July 2022, had also named his wife, Joni Lynn Buyer, as a relief defendant, on the basis that she profited when Buyer executed trades in her brokerage account.
A Golf Outing, a $26.5 Billion Merger, and Trades Placed the Next Day
The facts the jury accepted are unusually clean for an insider trading case. Buyer was a paid consultant to T-Mobile. He spent time with a T-Mobile executive on a golf course in March 2018. He learned the company was planning to acquire Sprint. He started buying Sprint the following day and kept buying until the news became public. The pattern repeated in 2019 with Navigant Consulting, where his client Guidehouse was the acquirer and the deal was disclosed publicly weeks after his purchases. Prosecutors urged the jury to focus on the timing of the trades, which tracked when employees at his client companies were learning about the mergers.
Buyer took the stand at his own trial and denied trading on inside information. His attorneys argued that no hard evidence established when he learned about either merger, and that he had relied on public research to select the stocks. The jury convicted on all four counts. Prosecutors sought 36 months; Judge Berman imposed 22. Then-U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said Buyer had abused positions of trust for personal gain. When the SEC first brought its case in 2022, enforcement director Gurbir Grewal noted that Buyer was an attorney, a former prosecutor, and a retired congressman, and said that insiders who monetize access to confidential information undermine public confidence in the fairness of markets.
The Appeals Ran Out, Then the Pardon Arrived
Buyer pursued his conviction through the full appellate process and lost at every stage. A federal appeals court affirmed the conviction. He then petitioned the Supreme Court, asking the justices to decide whether trading a stock on an exchange headquartered in Manhattan is by itself enough to require that an insider trading case be tried in the Southern District of New York. He argued that the prosecutor’s office claims, under Second Circuit precedent, that it may prosecute virtually any insider trading case involving a publicly traded stock. Prosecutors responded that lower courts had relied on trial evidence showing his trades were at least partly executed in that district. On May 18, 2026, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
Weeks later, in June 2026, President Trump issued the pardon. Buyer said afterward that it corrects a politically motivated prosecution. The pardon followed a June 2025 letter from five sitting House Republicans, Tom Cole of Oklahoma, Ken Calvert of California, Marlin Stutzman of Indiana, Jack Bergman of Michigan, and Pete Sessions of Texas, arguing that a pardon would bring justice to his case. A presidential pardon does not erase a criminal record, but it removes the remaining consequences of the conviction. Buyer had already served his sentence by that point. With the criminal consequences cleared, the SEC’s parallel civil case was the last open proceeding, and on August 24 the Commission agreed to end it.
The Second Pardoned Defendant to See His SEC Case Dropped This Month
Buyer is not the only pardoned insider trading defendant whose SEC case has been dismissed this year. On August 7, 2026, the Commission dismissed with prejudice its case against Terren Peizer of Ontrak, who had been convicted in the first criminal prosecution ever brought over the alleged misuse of a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan, sentenced to 42 months, and pardoned by Trump in January 2026. The SEC used nearly identical language in both filings, stating that the decision to seek dismissal does not necessarily reflect the Commission’s position on any other case. That formula appears across a series of dismissals the Commission has filed since early 2025. In each instance the effect is the same: a case the agency once brought as a matter of market integrity ends without a court ruling on the merits, and without the agency explaining what changed. The prohibition on insider trading remains on the books. Its application to these particular defendants has ended.
Conclusion
Stephen Buyer spent 18 years in Congress, then built a consulting practice, then used what a client told him on a golf course to buy $568,000 of Sprint stock the next day. A jury convicted him on four counts. A judge gave him 22 months. An appeals court affirmed it. The Supreme Court declined to revisit it. He served nearly two years. Then the President pardoned him, and two months later the SEC dismissed its civil case with prejudice and Buyer agreed never to sue the agency over it. The Commission’s only stated reason was that it believes dismissal is appropriate. The conviction stands in the record. Everything that was supposed to follow from it does not.
