Executive Summary

The U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission filed insider trading charges against former NBTY associate general counsel Mitchell Drucker and his father Ronald Drucker March 2, the commission announces. According to the complaint filed in federal court for the southern district of New York, Mitchell Drucker sold of all his NBTY stock on Oct. 18, 2001 after learning that the firm's fourth-quarter earnings would be 50% lower than analysts had previously predicted. The information was not publicly released until the following day. Mitchell Drucker also instructed his father to sell his shares and oversaw the sale of all of a friend's shares in the firm. Mitchell and Ronald Drucker avoided losses of $138,174 and $51,116, respectively. In addition to the disgorgement of losses avoided and civil penalties, SEC also is asking that the court bar Mitchell Drucker from acting as an officer or director of a public company...