SEC v. Alfred V. Tobia, Jr. and Elizabeth Lee (insider trading, 2025)

Settled

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In January 2025 the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Alfred Tobia Jr., a former public company president and chief investment officer, and his sister-in-law Elizabeth Lee with insider trading in Spok Holdings stock, alleging more than $428,000 in illegal profits after Tobia tipped Lee about his company's plan to bid for Spok in summer 2021. Both agreed to settle, subject to court approval: Tobia a $785,020 penalty and a five-year officer and director bar, Lee a $576,955 penalty.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$1.4m

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$1.4m

Alleged gain

$428k

A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced this matter on January 13, 2025 as release LR-26218, filing in the Southern District of New York.

The complaint alleges Tobia breached his fiduciary duty by tipping Lee, who promptly bought Spok shares. The release puts the combined payments at more than $1.36 million; the recorded penalty figure is the sum of the two stated penalties.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary document linked above. This page deliberately summarises the structured record rather than reproducing the release.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with one technique in our taxonomy. The tagging is ours: regulators charge statutory provisions, not technique names, so the mapping is an editorial judgement described in our editorial policy.

• Insider trading — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2025-01-14 Litigation release published

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

• SEC litigation release
• SEC Complaint

The linked release is a work of the United States government and is not subject to copyright. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.