SEC v. Donald G. Blakstad, et al. (insider trading, 2021)

Alleged — pending

These are allegations. SEC has filed an action; nothing in it has been proven, and the respondents have not been found liable. Everything described on this page is what the regulator alleges, not what a court has found. See our editorial policy.

✓ Checked against the primary document on October 4, 2026. The library's summary, tags and figures for this record were compared with the regulator's own document by an AI model (Claude) following written instructions, with sampled and disputed records read a second time. No lawyer has reviewed them. A checked record can still contain errors, and checked does not mean endorsed. See how we check records or report a correction.

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In August 2021 the SEC announced an amended complaint charging Robert Maron with trading Illumina securities on a tip passed from an Illumina accountant through Donald Blakstad, making over $1 million. Joubin Torkan is named as a relief defendant. No civil outcome is recorded.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

—

Alleged gain

$1m

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 the amended complaint on August 30, 2021 as litigation release 25186, in a case first filed in July 2019 in the Southern District of New York.

The SEC alleges Martha Bustos, an Illumina accountant, tipped Blakstad before Illumina announcements, and that Blakstad tipped Maron, who realised over $1 million and gave Torkan $113,833 of it. Parallel criminal proceedings were brought against Blakstad and Bustos.

The release records no civil judgment or money, so the status is filed. The earlier record named the defendants as 'Donald G. Blakstad, et al.' and showed the status as unknown.

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.

Partial outcome: the Commission's April 17, 2023 order (File No. 3-21372) states that a criminal judgment was entered on June 9, 2022 against Martha Bustos in the Southern District of New York, with a sentence of time served, two years of supervised release, a $20,000 fine and $12,000 forfeiture. It does not report a civil judgment, and no civil outcome for Blakstad, Maron, Torkan or Bustos was found. The case was first filed in 2019 (see the earlier Blakstad litigation release), so this record is an amended complaint in an existing case. Checked on 2026-10-04: no final outcome for the matter as a whole was found on the SEC litigation release or administrative proceeding pages, so the status stays filed.

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. 2021-08-30 Litigation release published
2. 2022-06-09 Criminal judgment against Bustos: time served (Commission order of Apr. 17, 2023)

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 Order, Exchange Act Release 97317 (Apr. 17, 2023; Bustos criminal sentence)

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. If this matter has since resolved, been withdrawn or been dismissed, we want to know: submit a correction.