With all of the career earnings and endorsement deals that Phil Mickelson has racked up over the course of his playing days, leading to a quite impressive net worth, one would think that he could sit back happily and count his money.
That appears to not be the case when Mickelson and his associates were investigated by the FBI and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2014 in an insider trading case regarding activity with stock in Clorox.
What Happened With Phil Mickelson’s Insider Trading Rumors?
He was never charged with any wrongdoing and has strongly denied any illicit activity, however, he did have to pay back roughly $1 million in gains that were obtained through insider information. He was found not to be the main culprit of the insider trading, rather he benefited from the illegal activities of others, primarily that of his gambling associate William “Billy” Walters.
The activity central to the case were trades made for Dean Foods in 2012. “Billy” Walters was found to have obtained insider information from Thomas Davis, who was formerly a director of the company. Mickelson was not convicted of anything and was able to get away from the case by paying back $931,000 in profit from his trades in Dean Foods, in addition to interest totaling $105,000. It was not alleged that Walters ever passed on his information along to Mickelson, his close associate. Walters was convicted in 2017 of profiting more than $40 million through his trading activity in Dean Foods during the period of 2008 to 2014.
According to the reports, Mickelson invested $2.4 million in Dean Foods, in which he earned over $900,000 in profit; he then returned this profit to Walters to pay off gambling debts that he owed to him.
