Star Tribune
Ex-Medtronic consultant convicted of insider trading; Twin Cities insurance agent acquitted
A federal jury last week convicted a former Medtronic consultant and acquitted a Twin Cities insurance agent who were both accused of participating in an insider trading scheme linked to the acquisition of an Israeli medical device company in 2018.
Doron “Ron” Tavlin, 68, of Minneapolis, was convicted on one count of conspiracy to commit insider trading and 10 counts of securities fraud and aiding and abetting securities fraud after a 10-day trial in St. Paul.
That same jury found David Jay Gantman, 58, of Mendota Heights, not guilty of all charges against him. A third defendant – Afshin “Alex” Farahan, 57, of Los Angeles – pled guilty in 2022.
According to the evidence presented at trial, Tavlin learned about a secret, pending acquisition by Medtronic of his Mazor Robotics, where he worked as vice president of business development, in 2018.
Mazor Robotics specialized in robotics for spinal procedures and it was valued at $1.6 billion when it was acquired by the Ireland-based Medtronic, which also has a headquarters in Fridley.
Tavlin then illegally tipped off Farahan, his friend, about news of the imminent acquisition and told him to keep the news secret. Farahan knew that the deal would likely result in a boost to Mazor’s stock price and quickly bought more than $1 million of the company’s stock throughout August and September 2018.
Farahan was accused of relaying the same inside information to Gantman, another friend, who then made multiple purchases of Mazor securities ahead of its September 2018 acquisition. Prosecutors said that Farahan netted more than $245,000 and Gantman made $255,000 in profit by selling the securities quickly after the deal was publicized.
Prosecutors said Farahan paid Tavlin for the secret information about the pending deal – including a $25,000 kickback about a year later.
Tavlin was meanwhile interviewed by investigators from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority examining certain trades of Mazor securities before its acquisition because of his knowledge of the secret negotiations. Tavlin falsely denied recognizing any names on a list of those who bought Mazor securities, which included Farahan.
The criminal case was the product of an FBI investigation. The federal Securities and Exchange Commission in 2022 also sued the three men and asked the court to compel them to “disgorge all funds received from their illegal conduct” with interest and be subject to civil penalties.
Senior U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank has not yet set a sentencing date for Tavlin and Farahan. Frank, who is also overseeing the civil proceedings, paused the lawsuit’s proceedings pending the resolution of the criminal case.
Messages were left seeking comment from attorneys for Tavlin. Gantman on Wednesday described the Justice Department’s contention that both he and Farahan received $500,000 in illegal profits as “terribly misleading” because the $255,000 he received was legally obtained, he said.
Gantman said he was “incredibly grateful” to the jurors for their service and to his attorney, William Mauzy.
“This has been a painful, stressful, and frightfully expensive ordeal,” Gantman said. “With my name now cleared, now is the time to rebuild my life and look for new opportunities.”
Mauzy said that, at trial, he stressed that Gantman “was a sophisticated trader who did his own research and made his own independent decisions” to buy Mazor securities. Gantman was aware of a distribution agreement between Medtronic and Mazor and knew that they were combining technologies into a new product planned to be rolled out at a conference around the same time Medtronic’s buyout of Mazor ended up happening.
“But he did not act on inside information, didn’t receive inside information and did his own research,” Mauzy said.
Mauzy said that he hopes the SEC will back away from proceedings against Gantman in light of the acquittal.
“We hope to convince them not to go forward with that and if they do we’ll be prepared to try it again if we have to,” Mauzy said.
“Under the Biden-Harris Administration, more than 11,000 bridges in communities across America are finally getting the repairs they’ve long needed with funding from our infrastructure law,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, in a news release. He said the bridge repairs ensure “people and goods can get where they need to go, safely and efficiently.”
A 19-year-old driver trying to get around slower vehicles collided head-on with an SUV in Wright County and killed one person and injured several others, officials said Thursday.
SUV passenger Janice Evelyn Johnson, 92, of Arden Hills, died Monday at HCMC from injuries she suffered in the collision on Oct. 22 in Monticello Township on County Road 37 near County Road 12, the Sheriff’s Office said in a search warrant affidavit filed in Hennepin County District Court.
The driver and two other people in the SUV survived their injuries, according to the affidavit, which the Sheriff’s Office filed to collect Johnson’s medical records at HCMC as part of its investigation.
According to the affidavit:
Deputies arrived at the crash scene and spoke with the car’s driver, Christian Kabunangu, of Brooklyn Park, who said he was heading west on County Road 37 and found himself behind two vehicles traveling below the speed limit.
“He was late for work, so he decided to pass them,” the affidavit read. Kabunangu said he saw the oncoming SUV and estimated it was about a half-mile down the road.
As he attempted to pass one of the slower vehicles, he explained, the other driver “sped up, preventing him from getting back into the westbound lane,” the filing continued.
As the Honda drew near, he swerved to the left, but the SUV did the same and they collided.
Star Tribune
University of Minnesota researchers find that native plants can beat invasive buckthorn on their own turf.
If the invasive buckthorn that is strangling the life out of Minnesota’s forest floor has a weakness, it is right now, in the shortening daylight of the late fall.
With a little help and planning, certain native plants have the best chance of beating buckthorn back and helping to eradicate it from the woods, according to new research from the University of Minnesota.
The sprawling bush has been one of the most formidable invasive species to take root in Minnesota since it was brought from Europe in the mid-1800s. It was prized as an ornamental privacy hedge. All the attributes that make buckthorn good at that job — dense thick leaves that stay late into the fall, toughness and resilience to damage and pruning, unappealing taste to wildlife and herbivores — have allowed it to thrive in the wild.
It grows fast and thick, out-competing the vast majority of native plants and shrubs for sunlight and then starving them under its shade. It creates damaging feedback loops, providing ideal habitat and calcium-rich food for invasive earthworms, which in turn kill off and uproot native plants. That leaves even less competition for buckthorn to take root, said Mike Schuster, a researcher for the university’s Department of Forest Resources.
When it takes over a natural area, buckthorn creates a “green desert,” Schuster said. “All that’s left is just a perpetual hedge, with little biodiversity.”
Since the 1990s, when the spread became impossible to ignore, Minnesota foresters, park managers and cities have spent millions of dollars a year trying to beat it back. They’ve used chainsaws and trimmers, poisons and herbicides, and even goats for hire. The buckthorn almost always grows back within a few years.
It’s been so pervasive that a conventional wisdom formed that buckthorn seeds could survive dormant in the soil for up to six years. That thought has led to a sort of fatalism: even if the plant were entirely removed from a property there would be a looming threat that it would sprout back, Schuster said.
But there is nothing special about buckthorn seeds. They only survive for a year or two.
