SEC v. Jordan Qsar, Grant Witherspoon, Austin Bernard, and Chase Lambert (insider trading, 2024)

Judgment entered

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In December 2024 the Securities and Exchange Commission announced final judgments against former minor league baseball players Jordan Qsar, Austin Bernard and Grant Witherspoon for trading Del Taco call options ahead of Jack in the Box's December 2021 acquisition announcement, on information Qsar got from a former teammate. Together they were ordered to pay $163,931 in disgorgement, $28,991 in interest and $198,214 in penalties; the release reports no outcome for a fourth defendant, Chase Lambert.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$198k

Disgorgement

$164k

Prejudgment interest

$29k

Total relief

$391k

Alleged gain

—

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 these judgments on December 5, 2024 as release LR-26186, in a Southern District of California case filed March 26, 2024; judgments were obtained on November 18, 2024.

Qsar made about $56,500, Bernard about $64,700 and Witherspoon about $42,800 on the trades, and Qsar tipped the other two. Their individual penalties were $63,194, $86,877 and $48,143. The recorded totals add the three respondents' stated amounts.

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. 2024-12-05 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

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.