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Former Georgeson LLC employee Donna Ackerly, (center), enters the federal courthouse in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. February 26, 2018. REUTERS/Nate Raymond
(Reuters) - An ex-employee of a firm that advises companies on shareholder votes has struck a deal that could result in the dismissal of charges that she conspired to bribe a proxy adviser’s employee to learn how its investor clients were voting.
Federal prosecutors in Boston on Friday filed a deferred prosecution agreement with Donna Ackerly, a former senior managing director at proxy solicitation firm Georgeson LLC, that would resolve the case against her ahead of a July 12 trial.
She was the last remaining defendant in an often-troubled 2016 criminal case. A jury in 2019 convicted Ackerly of conspiracy and wire fraud charges, after an earlier mistrial. But U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns granted her a new trial based on an improper question a prosecutor asked a witness.
Under Friday's deal, Ackerly acknowledged prosecutors had evidence to establish many of their core allegations, including that Georgeson employees sought information from an employee at Institutional Shareholder Services.
She accepted responsibility in exchange for prosecutors agreeing to drop the charges after 12 months, so long as she abides by the deal's terms, which include a clause barring her from publicly contesting the facts she acknowledged.
The agreement mirrors earlier ones prosecutors struck with three other ex-Georgeson employees in December before their own retrial.
Michael Kendall, Ackerly's attorney at White & Case, and a spokesperson for U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins declined to comment.
Proxy solicitation firms like Computershare Ltd's Georgeson help publicly traded companies on matters that require shareholder approval by trying to gather prospective information about institutional investors' holdings and how they are voting.
Prosecutors said Brian Bennett, a then-ISS employee, from 2007 to 2012 supplied Georgeson employee Michael Sedlak with secret information about how its shareholder clients were voting on matters involving companies including Walt Disney Co and Archer Daniels Midland.
Sedlak in turn relayed that information to Ackerly and three other Georgeson employees, and in exchange, Bennett received $14,000 of tickets to events such as a Boston Red Sox baseball game and concerts featuring U2 and Jay-Z, prosecutors said.
They said Ackerly also agreed to allow Sedlak to bill $1,400 of tickets to clients using invoices that described them as routine expenses like "courier services."
Bennett and one Georgeson employee, Keith Haynes, pleaded guilty, while Sedlak and two other ex-Georgeson employees reached deferred prosecution agreements in December. Georgeson in 2017 agreed to pay $4.5 million to resolve related charges.
The case is U.S. v. Ackerly, et al, U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts, No. 16-cr-10233.
For the United States: Mackenzie Queenin and Benjamin Saltzman of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts
For Ackerly: Michael Kendall of White & Case
Read more:
Ex-Georgeson employees' charges over bribery scheme could be dropped in deal
Prosecutors lose appeal of new fraud trial for ex-Georgeson employee
Ex-employee of proxy solicitor Georgeson convicted of fraud
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