The Rich Roll Podcast - The Plight of “Tipper X”: How Tom Hardin Became The Most Notorious FBI Informant in the Biggest Insider Trading Case in Decades — And The Long Run To Redemption

Episode Date: May 11, 2015

This week we explore some very new terrain. Let's kick it off with the Greek myth of Icarus. As the story goes, Daedalus — a master craftsman best known for building King Minos' labyrinth to trap the Minotaur — plied his talent to construct a pair of wax and feather wings to help him and his son Icarus escape from Minos' vendetta (it's a long story) and Crete altogether. Being the good father he was, Daedalus pled with his son not to fly too close to the sun for fear that the heat would melt the wings. But as sons are wont to do, Icarus ignored his father’s advice. The rest is history. The heat indeed melted Icarus' wings, sending him into a deathly free fall collision with the sea which today bears his name, the Ikarian Sea near Ikaria — ironically one of the Blue Zones as described in my recent podcast conversation with Dan Buettner. As most know, this is an age-old remonstration about ambition. A tragic allegory about the perils of hubris, particularly when fueled by a sense of entitlement, and perhaps sprinkled with a light dusting of denial. These are all very human traits of course. And if today's guest is anything, he is quite human indeed. Tom Hardin was a highly motivated young guy with a big bright future and Wall Street aspirations. After graduating from the prestigious Wharton School of Business, he was on track to achieve his dream when he landed in the fast paced hedge fund world and quickly rose through the ranks. But it wasn’t long before Tom felt he was falling behind – lacking that mysterious competitive ‘edge’ so many others seemed to freely enjoy (without repercussion) to their reward in untold millions. What was that edge? If you ask Tom, he will tell you the not so secret to success within the insular hedge fund world meant having a network of inside sources willing to share reliable confidential information about companies they worked for or with. Everybody's doing it. Nobody's getting caught. I'm falling behind. Then one day Tom got a call from an investor colleague named Roomy Khan – a woman with some pretty juicy insider tips. The timing was right. Tom was primed. And that fateful moment arose. That moment when you make a decision to take a very small step over a very important line. A decision you simply cannot undo. Not now, not ever. For Tom, it started with taking a few small crumbs off the table. An imperceptible insider trade here, another one there. Until one day, the previously unthinkable became easy. Almost too easy. Capitalizing on a handful of secrets fed by Khan and others about companies like Google, 3Com and Hilton Hotels, Tom's flight towards the sun escalated to the tune of $1.7 million in gains for his fund and $46K in personal profits. Then in July 2008, while dropping of his dry cleaning one morning, Tom felt a tap on the shoulder. A tap that would alter the trajectory of his life forever. Like a scene out of a movie, Tom turned to face two FBI agents boxing him in with with a Hobson's choice – either get in the back of the black sedan for a trip downtown, or start providing actionable information on those higher up the food chain. Panicked and heart pounding, he immediately opted for the latter. Ultimately, Tom became one of the most prolific informants in securities fraud history. Soon infamous as the mysterious, unnamed Tipper X, Tom spent the next several years wiretapping and documenting the illegal misdeeds of friends and c...

The Rich Roll Podcast. My name is Rich Roll. I'm your host. Welcome to my podcast. We're going to do things a little bit differently this week. I'm going to kick it off with a story. It's a story from Greek mythology. It's the story of Icarus. And for those that are not familiar with it, it goes like this. There was a guy called Daedalus. He was a master craftsman. And Daedalus constructed a pair of wings made out of feathers and wax to help both him and his son Icarus escape from Crete. Knowing his son well, Daedalus pled with Icarus not to fly so close to the sun for fear that the heat would melt the wings.

But of course, Icarus ignored his father's advice, as sons are wont to do. And no surprise, the heat indeed did melt the wax. Icarus kept flapping, but soon realized that he had no feathers left and fell into the sea in the area which today bears his name, the Icarian Sea near Icaria, which ironically, if you're a listener to the podcast, you might recall is one of the blue zones per my interview with Dan Buechner. In any event, it's an age-old story. It's a story about ambition. It's a story about tragedy at the hands of hubris with a little sprinkling of entitlement and perhaps a light dusting of denial. And these are very human traits. And if today's guest is anything, he is very human. Tom Harden. So who is Tom Harden? Well, Tom Harden was a highly motivated young guy who graduated from the prestigious Wharton

School of Business with Wall Street aspirations. And chasing his dream, he landed in the hedge fund world and quickly began rising in the ranks. But it wasn't long before Tom felt like he was falling behind, that he was lacking that edge that so many others seem to freely enjoy without any repercussion. What does that mean? Well, it meant, in his case, sources with secrets about companies they worked for or with. And then one day he got a call. It was a call from somebody named Rumi Khan, who was an investor friend of his, who offered up some pretty juicy insider tips. And that moment arose.

That moment when you make a decision to take a tiny, tiny step over a very important line. In Tom's case, it started with taking just a few small crumbs off the table, and then it grew from there until ultimately, he had made about $1.7 million in profits for his fund and personally pocketed about $46,000 in gains, capitalizing on a handful of secrets from Kahn and others about companies like Google and Hilton Hotels. And then one fateful day in July of 2008, while dropping off his dry cleaning one morning, Tom got that tap on the shoulder, and it was like a scene out of a movie. A couple feds in sunglasses flashing wallets with credentials and offering him a choice. Either get in the back of that black sedan for a trip downtown, or take a seat, let's have a conversation, and you start

providing actionable information on those higher up on the food chain. And in the moment, it was a pretty easy choice for Tom to make. And ultimately, Tom became one of the most prolific FBI informants in securities fraud history. He soon became infamous as the mysterious Tipper X, that's what he was called in the parlance of the industry. And for the next seven years, Tom wiretapped and documented the illegal misdeeds of friends, colleagues, and ultimately became the most seminal informant in the biggest insider trading case of this generation. Two dozen convictions, including the toppling of billionaire Raj Rajarathan, the founder of the Galleon Group hedge fund, who was personally accused of making $75 million and now is serving an 11-year prison term.

Along the way, Tom lost his job. He lost his friends. He lost his standing in the community. And he too was convicted of a felony, but avoided jail time due to his extraordinary cooperation. But he's essentially unemployable. He's wracked by guilt. He's afraid. And in many cases, he's very much alone. And he is the first to say that he is his own undoing.

He takes personal responsibility for all the decisions and the choices that he has made. And I think it's very easy to judge guys like Tom, whether it's that moment in which a professional cyclist decides the only way that he can remain competitive is to dope, or that moment when making an illegal trade seems like the only thing to do, or that decision to become an FBI informant. I think we'd all like to think that if we were provided the same opportunity and placed in the same scenario that we would make a different decision. But personally, unless I have walked a mile in someone's shoes, I just don't feel like it's my place to say with any degree of certainty what I would have done under similar circumstances. And what I'm interested in is what leads a person towards their own dismantling?

What are the emotions that accompany such a scenario? What can be learned from Tom's experience? And the inherent power of moments like these to become reborn, an entirely different and maybe better person. In Tom's case, it's been a soulful exploration of the spirit. It's been a search for comfort and answers that he's found in community service and also a newly discovered love of ultra running. And I sat down with Tom this past winter. It was literally just days after his sentencing hearing to explore all of this. And I found him to be a guy who is somewhat lost, a little bit confused, and a little unclear on where his life might lead. And I was really honored and touched, I have to say, that he agreed to sit down with me at all.

And more importantly, that he entrusted me to share his story in full. And for the first time and on record, I might add, he had never really fully told his entire story to anybody else before outside of his wife. And he did it with laudable candor, with courage, with vulnerability, and a level of raw honesty that I really appreciate and respect. We go into the details behind the choices he has made, the wreckage that has caused, and what he's learned about himself in the process. the wreckage that is caused, and what he's learned about himself in the process. So tonally, and again, this is a very different type of podcast conversation. In many respects, it's a cautionary tale perhaps, but it's also a story about the path towards redemption. And I'm really proud to share it. And my hope is that you will find something compelling about the human

condition that will inform your own path. Because a full-blown dismantling can be tragic or it can be your divine moment. It's an opportunity to begin again, to begin a new life with a new perspective on what's truly important. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety.

And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, support and empower you to find the ideal level of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have

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It's quite an extraordinary story, and I appreciate your willingness to kind of be here and be open about it. Like we just were talking about before we started recording, I can't even imagine what it would be like to walk a mile in your shoes so I think it takes a little bit of courage to come down here and and share a little bit so thank you no problem yeah I'm pleasure to do it you know it's been I would imagine a pretty crazy past couple weeks it was February 25 right, where you had your sentencing hearings. And that's kind of the sort of closing the book or the final chapter on what's been a really long road for you. It was, yes. And we were pretty confident in the outcome that I received, but you never know, because the judge had not sentenced anybody else in this insider trading ring. So we weren't sure exactly what would happen. Would I get probation or would she throw the book at me?

I mean, the possibility existed that you still could go to jail, right? Go to jail, right, yeah. And so I have a five-year-old, three-year-old wife, so that was still a possibility. And even though the prosecution was recommending probation, no jailed, the probation officer was recommending the same thing. She still took a few minutes to think about it. A very pregnant pause. She heard everybody and said, let me take a few minutes.

I was sort of thinking, what was there to think about? There's no, like, mandatory sentencing. There are mandatory sentencing guidelines, but they don't have to stick by that. And because of the cooperation, they can sentence below that. Right. So I was looking at if I didn't cooperate, I believe it was 36 months of incarceration. And so my cooperation then brings that down. Right.

And it helped that the prosecution was recommending this. Yeah, they said this was one of our star cooperators, and he did so much for us. And they weren't recommending jail time or anything. So no jail time served and no probation? No probation. You're not on probation. Previous to this, you were just out on bail, right? Right, right.

You're not on probation. Previous to this, you were just out on bail, right? Right, right. I had pleaded guilty in December 2009, and I spent a day in the U.S. Marshal's office being processed. So I was sentenced to time served a few weeks ago, which just meant that time I was incarcerated for a few hours. Right. But over the last couple of years, I've been waiting to be sentenced, and so it was kind of a probationary period. I talked to a probation officer a few times Why did it take six years to sentence you?

I don't know I don't think I was a high priority because they were going after all the bad guys That backlogged I mean you're a high profile guy like everybody knew who you were Right, right It just kept getting delayed

I kept getting a date we'd get ready for it. And then a few weeks out, I learned it was delayed. And this was a process from 2000. I was in court 2009. I was to be sentenced to 2010. It just took until 2015. That seems crazy.

At 37 now, I could be doing something totally. I could be in my second career already. Right. I've lost the working years of 32 to 37, which are prime working years, and I can't retire. I have to work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But at least a sigh of relief over the last couple weeks, right? Yes.

It's a huge relief just getting it behind me. And I haven't been able to speak to many of my friends in the industry for several years. Was there a gag order on you being able to talk to people, or how did that work? Most people didn't respond to me. I would reach out when they get together in the city. You're a poison pill. Yeah, I think with the compliance officers, I imagine my friends had to tell their employers that they knew me,

and my name was in the press. Right, like is this guy showing up with a wire or two? Yeah, exactly. My friends had to tell their employers that they knew me and my name was in the press. Right. Like, is this guy showing up with a wire, too? Yeah, exactly. So I understood. I didn't have old grudges. Like, why haven't you talked to me in five years? I would probably have to do the same thing if it was another friend.

Right. But you have the felony conviction. I do. Yeah. Right. So you have to figure out a way to, you know, move forward with that. Right. And I want to get into that.

But let's take it back to the beginning. Like I want to, I want to understand how this all began. I mean, you're, you know, as I understand it, you were raised in relatively middle-class circumstances. You were able to get a scholarship to Wharton, right? Did you do biz school and undergrad as one program? One program, right. I received an ROTC scholarship, which is the only real way to get a scholarship at Ivy. And so I went to the Wharton undergraduate program. Good student in high school, had the grades. Grew up where? Outside of Atlanta in a county called Gwinnett, northeast of Atlanta. It's a pretty sprawling

metropolitan area. Traffic traffic's terrible. My father worked for Coca-Cola. My mother had a daycare center in our home. Just middle class lifestyle. Played soccer. I had two younger brothers. We were all soccer players. It wasn't good enough to play at Penn. I could have walked on, but then I looked at doing that my freshman year and then the rigors

of the academic load wasn't worth it. I wasn't going to be playing in MLS or anything. So it's like a hybrid business school undergrad program? It is the business side. So you go right into B school. Right. Well, you get a BS in economics, and you concentrate in finance or accounting or whatever. So it's a bachelor's.

So you knew when you were a kid you wanted to go into finance. Yes. Like investment banker. Right, right. I was always reading three newspapers every morning at USA Today. One of those Alex B. Keaton's. I was trying to remember his name from

family times. I didn't wear the suit to school. I didn't want to be hanging by the flagpole. I was just really into it, following it. Where do you think that came from? I don't know. My grandmother was a stock picker. She got into it in the 60s and 50s. And I talked with her about the market when I was a child. Were you like trading when

you were in high school? I wasn't, no, no. I would just follow it. And then so when I got to senior year, the Wharton School is the top business program. And that was my reach school back in the 90s. You applied to three schools. And so that was the reach. And I got deferred and got waitlisted. And I kept peppering the admissions officer with all my AP scores and SAT twos and all that stuff and saying, it's my top choice. And we had no way to really pay for it. And then the ROTC scholarship came over. And so that kind of worked it out. What do you have to do to, like, you have to be, what is being in the ROTC involved? So it was one day a week of class. And then there was a drill a couple hours after that. So it was

like one Friday, I had to go to another university in Philadelphia, St. Joseph's. And I do that every Friday for four years. Are you in the reserves after that? What happened was, it was 1999, I did an internship actually with Donaldson, Lufkin, Ginrett in 1998 in the summer in LA. They were the ballers.

It was the ex-Drexel Lambert guys, the guys that didn't get caught up in all that stuff. Right. If you're familiar, I got that summer of 1998 internship. It was like, we were going out every night. It was great. Right. And you were in the thick of it there.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, not that LA is the center of finance, but DLJ in LA was a major situation. DLJ LA was pulling in. Yeah, yeah. They had a couple. Was that Century City? Yes, yes.

In the Fox Plaza? I worked in the Fox Plaza. Did you? It was the Nakatomi Towers. What year was that? I was there in the summer of 98 and I started working there in the fall of 99. We were there,

we were working in that building at the same time. Were we really? Okay. I was a lawyer at Christensen Miller in 98 and 99. Yeah,

98, 99, I was there. Yeah. Every day, working. I lived in Westwood. It's on the 24th floor, I think. I can't remember. Yeah, I don't remember the. I was there every day working. I lived in Westwood.

24th floor, I think. I can't remember. Yeah, I don't remember the floor I was on. But I graduated Penn, and I bought a Jeep and drove out to LA and lived in Westwood there at UCLA. And I had just been gone for a period of UCLA. That's what everybody does when they're new to LA. They think Westwood's the place to live. I'm like, oh, this is a real college. Yeah.

I was shacked up in the library. This is the real college. Yeah. I was shacked up in the library. This is the way to live. So I lived in Westwood, but I didn't see any of it because that program in investment banking is 100-hour work weeks or more. Right. You're twiddling your thumbs during the day, and at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, the managing director says, I need this in my chair in the morning. And so you're there all night cranking. That's the life, man. Yeah.

I bet you we rode the elevator at the same time at some point. You know? Probably. That's a trip. Yeah. So you do that, and you're setting your sights on Wall Street. Yeah, getting to New York at some point in my career. And then January 2000, I get a call from a friend who's at a hedge fund, which is a small investment firm in Greenwich, Connecticut, saying they're looking.

And this is at the time, January 2000, the NASDAQ is going crazy. The valuations are very frothy in these toys.com and pets.com and toys.com. So when I came back after the summer of 98, everybody I came back to work with in the fall of 99 was gone. They were all at the dot coms. So I didn't really know as many people there and got this call. It sounded pretty sexy, cover technology stocks at this hedge fund that was growing in Greenwich, Connecticut. And so in January of 2000, I flew

from LA to Greenwich, Connecticut and snows everywhere. I don't know if I made the right decision. But it's something I wanted to eventually get to in my career. And so I figured at 22, but it's something I wanted to eventually get to in my career, and so I figured at 22, why not start? And that was Lenexa? That was called Blair Asset Management. It was a small fund. So that's your first job? First job, like picking stocks, yeah.

I was in investment banking just for a few months. So I came over to start picking, to get trained to pick technology stocks for this firm. So I worked there a couple years, spent a lot of time in Silicon Valley. That's where all the companies are. Right. Developing relationships there, doing fundamental research. When you pick a stock, a technology, you want to talk to the customers,

the suppliers, the competitors, and develop a view on the stock. Do you want to own it or, you want to talk to the customers, the suppliers, the competitors and develop a view on the stock. Do you want to own it or do you want to short it? Because in a hedge fund, you can be short or you can be long. So I did that. So like boots on the ground research. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Right.

Like kind of what I learned in school and fundamental analysis, they called it. Not trading technical analysis, fundamental, you know, Peter Lynch is the name for analysis. And so that was in 2000. That firm closed in 2002, but I bounced around between other firms that were similar, 2003, 2004. So in my 20s, I had the same type of job at different firms. And then I got up into 2006, and a friend of mine was starting a fund, Lenexa, and said, you know, do you want to come join me as a partner?

And so I said, sure. You know, I had no partnership anywhere before, and I was coming in my late 20s, and I had several years of experience. And this was a great opportunity to see something grow, and maybe this would be my job I could hold until retirement. Right, right, right. Well, you're getting in at the – this was just beginning, right? Right, right. So you get on the ground floor.

Right. So just walk somebody – walk the audience through what a hedge fund is and what a hedge fund does just for the layperson. Right. audience through what a hedge fund is and what a hedge fund does just for the lay person. Right. So a hedge fund is a pool of capital from investors that could be institutional or individual. The hedge fund can invest. It's different from a mutual fund because not only can it buy stocks, it can short stocks, which means you bet the stock shares of a company are going to go down. And so in theory, no matter what the market does, as long as you're owning the right stocks,

you're betting that the right stocks are going to go up and you're betting against the right stocks, you're betting those are going to go down, you should be making money, whether the market's going crazy or the market's tanking. And so because that's, I guess, viewed as a higher skill set than a mutual fund, the funds that the firm can charge are higher. The profit percentages are higher. So the hedge fund would keep 20% of all profits and 80% go to investors. So it gets pretty lucrative based on how many assets you have, how much you can return, and then you take your 20%. And this is why – yeah, so you take your 20% no matter what. Right.

Right? So that's pretty good. Right. Well, you take your – it's 2% management, which is charged on the size of the fund, and 20% if you make money. I got you. So if you're a big firm not making money, you're still taking your 2% on your assets, right? You're taking your 2%. Got you. And so this is why suddenly there's this massive proliferation of hedge funds everywhere.

Yes, money was going into hedge funds like crazy in the last decade. And by 2005, 2006, with housing going, that asset class was really on fire. And you could get into a hedge fund. It used to be you had to have a million net worth, and then it even became like you could get into a fund of funds that would invest in a hedge fund if you didn't even have that. So there was a lot of money going into it. Right. So you would invest in – like if you're an individual investor, you could invest in a huge fund, and that fund would then invest in a variety of hedge funds. Yes, they would pick hedge funds for you, right?

So you get hit with fees twice, so you have to – It's like if you're an individual, it's like leasing a car, you're getting screwed either way, right? Exactly. And what distinguishes one hedge fund from another other than the size of the fund? It's just the managerial team, right? And what they're deciding to place their investments in. Their style of investing, how they do their research, but it becomes tougher to distinguish yourself and grow as we learn because there's so many funds. And so if you meet with a potential investor, they say, well, what is your edge? You own Apple. What do you know about Apple that nobody else knows? I mean,

this is the biggest technology company. What can you tell me that nobody else knows? And how do you answer that? Well, we think we're thematic investors and we think Apple is the tech stock to own for the next 10 years because they've got mobile right, they're going to get wearables right. And we invest and we think that they're going to earn this much money in five years and the stock's only trading here and they have this much cash. You try to justify it based on your fundamental research. But that fundamental research is what's accessible to everybody. Yes, so it gets a little trickier. So really you have to put up consistently good returns.

And if you do that for a few years, most people are going to stop asking questions. Right, but when you first begin, you have to build that trust somehow, right? So you need at least one big investor who's going to say, I'm going to take a bet on these young guys, right? And so you become like this, what was called one of the tiger cubs. Right. You need a big anchor. And there, Julian Robertson started Tiger. This was a big hedge fund, started in the early 80s and became a big fund through the 90s. Tiger management. Tiger management, along with Soros management. These were George Soros, Julian Robertson are billionaires now, multi-billionaires.

Julian started seeding younger managers later in life, and so he wanted just to find the next him or the next guys that would carry the torch for him. And so we started off with $16 million. He gave us $15 million. Another individual gave us $1 million, we started off with 16 million. He gave us 15, another individual gave us a million. So we had $16 million, but we did have him as our anchor investor. And then we could go out to potential other investors and at least we got this guy, this guy, you've heard of him. Yeah. Yeah. And so, I mean, 16 million is not, that's a small fund, right? It is, right. And so you're this upstart fund.

And how large did it get? We got to $100 million in 2007. So through capital appreciation and bringing in more investors, we had a great 2007, as did many funds. And so what happens is a lot of these investors wait to see how you do, and then they put money in at the end of 2007, which is like buying a stock at the top. Right. So the first year or whatever, so this is good, right? Yeah, it's good. You're living your dream. Right. A partner at a hedge fund seeded by Julian Robertson. I'm 28 years old. This is kind of where I'm going to see myself staying.

Maybe eventually he'll give me money for my own hedge fund, and maybe I'll just be doing this for everyone. You're very well positioned for a really lucrative, successful career. And are you married? Yes, I got married in 2005. I was like 27. Right. Yes, I got married in 2005.

I was like 27. Right. But my wife, we met in 2003 at a bar through mutual friends. And she was actually a swimmer at Harvard. Oh, wow. Yeah. So she's the real athlete of the family. I've just tacked on later.

That's interesting. Who was the coach there? Joe Bernal didn't coach the women there uh stuff stuff read as the coach now and coached my wife um back in the 90s but i think she just i think she's been there 15 years but i don't remember who the men's yeah it was joe bernal i think he's still there okay anyway um but you what's interesting is that it seems to me my impression from the limited amount of articles on the web about this is that you seem like overall you're a pretty grounded guy. Like you're not like living the baller lifestyle, like getting some huge loft in Tribeca.

No, no. You know what I mean? Like you're living in New Jersey and you're building your family. Yeah, building family, not balling in the club. Right, throwing dollars around in the strip club and stuff. No, no, Catholic band. But you must have like lots of, you must have had buddies do it. I mean, talk to me about like the culture of that world.

Like a typical hedge fund guy in New York. They were going out multiple times a week. Pulling in like, you know, what does it look like? I mean, you know, 24, 25-year-old guys pulling in a couple million dollars what does it look like uh i mean you know 24 25 year old guys pulling in a couple million dollars a year maybe right or at least a couple hundred thousand so they've got no no kids no wife they're just pulling in big bucks for that age and and just throwing it around like crazy traveling to vegas let's go to vegas this weekend charter a plane charter a plane right yeah let's go to ibiza like how Charter a plane. Yeah. Let's go to Ibiza.

How are you, like, are you just opting out of that or just around the margins of it or? A little bit. Like I go to Vegas here and there if it was like a bachelor party for a good friend, go out. But I wasn't too much into that partying all the time. And it was pretty serious about my work. Right. Cause it's like, you know, for know for most people i mean i have friends that are in this world so i know a little bit about it and i wouldn't say that i'm very well versed in it and you know it's like you know our point of reference is wolf of wall street right wall street what you see in the movies or what you see in television like when you when you see something like that like when you watch a movie like that do you do you go us no that's not like that or do

you go yeah like i can you know i know guys like that or i mean not exactly like that but like that do you do you go us no that's not like that or do you go yeah like i can you know i know guys like that or i mean not exactly like that but like that yeah there's guys like that yeah but it's not i wouldn't say the average guy is like that um but uh yeah people are definitely i mean at that age when you're making that kind of money right they're just spending it and having fun and it's going to last forever and right well i mean you know it's sort of like when everyone balks at how justin bieber acts but it's like throw that much. Right. Well, I mean, you know, it's sort of like when everyone balks at how Justin Bieber acts, but it's like throw that much money at any kid that age and see what happens. You know what I mean?

It's like people become, you know, a little bit different versions of maybe what they would be. Yeah. You know, we're surrounded by grounded people or what have you. Right, right. I had like a middle class upbringing. A lot of guys I met, you know, it's sort of like the prep school mafia. Oh, where'd you go? And I went to a good college, but I was public high school. And so not being in that circle, I think I just wasn't into. Right. The pinky ring.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. World, right? Right, right. Yeah. start to begin to unravel? I mean, at some point, somebody enters your orbit and you make a regrettable decision and cross a certain line. Around 2005, 2006, I go to a lot of investment, stock investment conferences. So what that means is a bank will put on a conference and bring their clients there who are public companies. And they give their presentations, their PowerPoints, Q&A, and they have meetings with investors. And so you go there, you meet with the companies that you know, and then you're talking to them

about all their businesses. And then at night, you're going out with your buddies who are also investors. And so 2006, really, at these dinners, people are talking about, oh, so-and-so is going to buy so-and-so next week. Oh, yeah, I know that one, but I'm going to play this other one. You know about this company that's going to buy this one. And I'm sitting there and all year, 2006, I kind of can't believe that people are just doing it so blatantly and putting bets on takeovers and whatnot. And so I guess everybody kind of went to school together, and some people are investors, some are lawyers, but they're all kind of – This cabal. Yeah, yeah.

So all my buddies, like – or he works at this technology company, and he gives me the numbers. And I'm kind of like, well, what do you mean he gives you the numbers? Oh, he tells me the revenue and the gross margin and the earnings. Before it's public. Before it's public. And so we play that one small, and the gross margin and the earnings. Before it's public. Before it's public. And so we play that one small and we'll play another one big.

And if you buy a stock big, sell some before the announcement because that way if the SEC calls you, oh, I was selling some. I didn't know that was going to happen. And so I'm hearing this. As long as you don't play it too big and you mix it up with some other stuff. Right, yeah, you won't get flagged. And if you do, at least you're saying, oh, I was selling it the day before. Or, hey, you're only calling me about this big winner. Look at all these big losing trades I have.

What are you talking about? But clearly there's a lot of this information getting shuffled around. Yeah, clearly it's over the line. A little bit like, you know, as someone on the outside looking in, like it's easy to be kind of flabbergasted like really but you know when you're immersed in the culture to just be kind of like well this is going on right it's going on i'm going to these conferences i'm going to dinner with buddies in new york oh what are you playing next week i'm playing the takeover of this company buying that

company and i didn't i was just sort of shocked that like it was so blatant, but it's been going on at that point for the whole year, 2006, um, funds are being started whose business models are just crossing the line and playing these deals. Like, for example, like explain that a little bit. Um, like, uh, there were people in the industry managing small hedge funds who became known for just playing, meaning they were just placing bets on either certain companies' earnings announcements because they had contacts in those companies, or they had lawyer contacts who would tell them about mergers and acquisition deals. Instead, they would play those, place bets on the stocks. And so that was, if you looked at a lot of the firms, 2005, 2006, all of their big winners were illegal trades in this type of inside information. Right.

And they're getting away with it. They're getting away with it. It's not being prosecuted at all, as far as I could see. And I think in the early part of the decade, the focus was maybe on boiler room stuff and the Long Island stockbroker and stuff like that, penny stocks. Right, the Wolf of Wall Street type situation. It wasn't really on this higher level, big hedge funds, small hedge funds doing all this. Like moving huge amounts of money around. Yeah, yeah.

And so that was going on pretty blatantly all of 2006. The biggest analogy that I can think of is doping and cycling. Like there's a culture where this is just going on. And, you know, again, to be the outsider looking in, it's sort of like shocking. And again, to be the outsider looking in, it's sort of like shocking. But when you're in the middle of it, you could see how you're going to start to gravitate towards making that choice if that's what's going on around you. I mean, is that how you would characterize how it began for you? I think that's pretty close. I was thinking steroids and baseball, same type of thing.

If you were in high school, an AP calculus, and somebody said, Hey, here's the answers to the test. You're not really looking to find the answers to the test, but somebody just gave them to you. Even if you're the most ethical person, you have the test the next day and somebody just gave you the answers. It's going to be hard not to do something with that. So yeah, having the answers to the test, doping and cycling or steroids and baseball. But there's a, like, I guess the difference between steroids or doping and this would be, you know, you could just be within a group of people and passively absorb something without taking any action. Like suddenly you've just overheard something and then you have this moral dilemma, like,

well, I could act on that. I just overheard this. I was at a cocktail party and I heard these guys talking about this. You have to take the action of acting on it, but you've come into that information passively. Whereas taking steroids, that's a conscious act that you have to take. But at some point, you do take a conscious act. Do you remember what was it like when you consciously said, I'm going to take this step, I'm going to step over the line? What was that?

Yeah, it was in 2007. So I was saying 2006 was getting pretty crazy with the stuff. In 2007, a woman who I had known through the industry was also an investor. She was one of these people who always heard a lot of rumors. And so she would call me a lot of times with, you know, I hear, I hear a rumor about Intel's earnings are going to be good. You should be buying it. And sometimes she's wrong. And it's like, right. Rumi Khan. Yes, that's right. Um, and so she called me one day and said, um, I'm hearing, uh, our, our, I'm being told that Kronos is going to be acquired

next week for, I forgot the dollar amount. And that's a little different than, uh, Oh, I'm hearing this and that. Did you wait? So did you call her or she called me? She called you. She's like this, she, she's like this intermediary, like a, an information warehouse for passing this stuff along. Right. She lives in Silicon Valley and Atherton big house, uh, made a bunch of money. And so she is really plugged into that network of people. And how did you initially get connected with her? A mutual investor friend of ours several years before connected me with her. I had actually never met her in person for five or six years. And so we just talked on the phone.

And so she was always meeting with companies, meeting with her friends that worked at these companies and trying to piece things together. Um, I mean, legitimately most of the, you know, most of the time, but, um, it got to the point in 2007 where she called me with information about, uh, this takeover and it was very specific, but it was the first time. So I don't know if it's a rumor or, oh, you know, sure. Okay. I'll buy a little bit.

I mean, who would have the specific information? And she never had any information that specific. And so my fund, we bought a little bit of shares relative to our asset size. It wasn't like we were saying, oh, let's make a big bet on this. Right, but do you kind of privately harbor this or do you tell your partners no i told my partner uh she called i spoke to her this is what she's saying so there's a collective decision here to like right on this right i hope maybe he would say uh you know right and he and did you kind of have like a you know what was the mental calculus like were you aware like okay i'm

i'm making this decision making this decision moral this decision. This is a moral dilemma that I'm going to fall into the, I'm going to sort of take a step into the dark side. Yeah, it was like that. Hearing all those guys in 2006 bragging about these big trades and they know this and that. Hey, finally, like, you know, Tom doing the real fundamental work, talking to customers, suppliers, that's all. You know, finally I'm getting one of these. That's for chumps. Yeah, I'm getting one of these the hot ones and so there was some like finally you're on the team yeah i'm on the team so

like if i see these guys again at dinner hey did you guys hear about this one like oh uh and so yeah so there was that decision um there was i mean when you like so when you go home that night knowing that that trade's happening like how does that's happening, are you just cool with it? Or is it creating some dissonance for you? How do you emotionally process that? Or is it just you rationalize it, this is the way the business is? That was the first one, so it was just rationalized. Maybe it's a rumor.

Maybe nothing's going to happen. But at the same time saying, Hey, it's my turn to take a few crumbs off the table. You don't really think about it as, Hey, I'm going to come in a felony. Like there's no, there's no victims. The victims are the public, the investing public doesn't know this. So, but there's not really, it's not a white collar crime where, Oh, I'm going to like bilk these guys out of their money. Like it's not it's not – Yeah, there's arguments that you can use to rationalize it.

Yeah, exactly. And the idea of, like, hey, if I really want to play in this field, like, I've got to step it up. Got to do this, yeah. So I've got to do some of these. And so how much money did the fund make off that trade? That one, I think we made, like, half a million dollars, which on $100 million, 0.5%. So it's not – I mean it was a good trade that day, but it's not something that we needed to do because 2007, we were doing well anyways.

But so we made a decent chunk of money there. And so – And now you're in. Now I'm in. And Rumi says, hey, this guy that gave me the information, I gave him your cell phone number. He wants to get paid. And then I know, you did what?

Oh, my God. You gave this. So you're not paying, no one's paying Rumi, but she wants to pay her sources. Yeah, he wants to get paid. I think $10,000 is good. Could you write him a check? I'm going to write him a check from my bank account

to some guy I don't even know. Then I know I'm really like, this is way overboard. Like, oh my God, I can't believe this is happening. But then I'm already in. We've already played the stock. And so the implicit understanding is if you want this channel of communication to stay open, you've got to take care of it. She's saying you've got to take care of it.

Right, this guy's going to have a few more for us, I think. So let's get him going now, and he'll have a few more. So what do you do? Do you get cash out? I had shared this information with another friend at another fund, and I asked him, do you think you could get some cash together from my source because he's going to have a few more for us? So I was kind of the intermediary.

So nothing would be coming from me. And my friend got cash together. He worked at the trading desk where a bunch of traders had made money, and they said they threw it past the hat. They got $10,000. And then this guy, Rumi's friend, is going to be in New York. He texts me, meet me at so-and-so corner. And I have the envelope, and I don't look at him. is going to be in New York. He texts me, meet me at so-and-so corner and it's sort of, I have the envelope

and I don't look at him and are you Tom? And I hold it up. And he just takes it out of your hand. You're on a street corner in New York. Right. Are you Tom? Wow.

I hold it up. There's the money and I kind of try to disassociate myself from it. Like I'm not really doing this. Like, I don't know, like this isn't me but i right in the game now and so right right right i'll give him the money and maybe maybe he will just go away and not uh not give us anything anymore maybe this will be it

and i'll just take a shower and be it yeah uh you know the human ability to rationalize, you know, behavior is profound, right? Like you've already, you've already did it. You've got to get through the day. This is what's happening. And to disassociate like who you are from the action that you're taking is the only way that you can kind of live with the behavior, right? Right. Right. Yeah. So interesting. Um, you know, this interview came together like sort of super last minute. And, uh, uh, so I didn't read up as much as maybe I could have. I mean, you know, I know your story, but I'm remembering, uh, maybe I'm totally wrong about this, but I believe there was a vanity fair article like a while back that, that roomy, it was about just kind of what's going on in hedge funds and about, I think there was stuff about this case in particular, the Galleon case in particular, but I believe there was some stuff about Rumi and what she was doing. Maybe I'm wrong.

There was something in the New York Times Weekend Magazine a few weeks ago about like what she's up to. She went to prison for a year and what she's up to out of prison. And my name was in there. and what she's up to out of prison, and my name was in there. From what I understood, the FBI had approached her around 2007 with a list of names, and she was instrumental to their prosecution of the Galleon Group, which was the big billionaire they were going after that they put away for 11 years.

She happened to only be talking to this billionaire, me and another guy. I was on a short list and I'm a nobody compared to... Right. So you're probably assuming she's making all kinds of calls to every... Right. You're just a small fish in her little network. I don't want to know who she's talking to. It's better not to know. And after all this happened, I come to realize she's really not talking to too many people. So when they're trying to get leverage on Rajarajaratnam, Rumi Khan is feeding them information on a few stocks. Who else is Rumi Khan talking to? How can we get leverage on her? Oh, there's this guy, Tom Harden. Who is this guy? Right. So that's how it all begins. Right. But back to the timeline. So you do this. So the Kronos trade is the first thing and then from it just goes from there right it goes from there the next one is um hilton july 4th 2007 they were

they were going to be acquired by blackstone right right um so you come into that information right through roomie again through roomie uh hilton's gonna buy blackstone blackstone's gonna buy hilton um july it's gonna to happen July 3rd at this price. And so at that point, I'm thinking of how can I justify this trade if the SEC ever calls me about these trades? So I'm looking. I'm looking at options activity. Sometimes the options on the stock start, people start buying options

because they know something or nothing's going on. July 3rd, an analyst from a bank puts out a report saying, Hilton could be a good takeover target because it's cheap. And I tell my partner, we can buy this. You can hang your hat on that. Yeah, this is a report. And it's actually going to happen tonight. Like it's going to happen before the holiday tomorrow.

We can buy all we want today because this report's out. Thank God we have like a cover. And so he agreed and we bought hilton and but you went large on that one a little bit bigger because we had had uh the information we had gone through the chronos trade and okay hilton we know it's how much time in between these two trades uh chronos was in march and hilton was july uh-huh so a couple months uh and uh we went bigger in that one. And we had this cover. There's this analyst report. If we ever got called by the SEC, because we had heard in the past that

funds who have questionable trades usually get like a nice phone call from the SEC. Hey, could you call us back and talk to us about this? Okay, let's get our cover ready. And as long as you can show them your profits and like, hey, you guys aren't asking me about all these trades. I lost money on here. I lose money. I make money. You can call me about my winners. Look at my losers. And it usually passes if you can dance around it. Um, so we had a cover for Hilton. Right. So like if the initial red flag goes up, you get that courtesy call, right? You're organized about why are you buying Hilton? You're a technology hedge fund, right? Right're organized about why are you buying your technology hedge fund like right right he's on a tech stock right why are you buying it the day before it's

being acquired oh this guy you know we might even i think i don't know if we did but you might even buy hilton marriott you might have bought all three or four public insured ones just to say oh we're making a bet i got you yeah yeah so the strategies for just hiding it or constantly thinking of a cover. And then after Hilton. And you're not getting any of these phone calls. The SEC is not calling you. Even after Hilton, it's radio silence.

You think you're in the clear. Right. Everybody else is kind of doing their own takeover trades. My other investor friends. Everybody's just playing the game. It's 2007. We call it Merger Monday. You wake up every Monday.

There's three or four mergers that were negotiated over the weekend. It's just a pretty frothy time. And then the next trade was the Google earnings announcement in July. It was from a different contact of Rumi's. She worked at an investor relations firm and was privy to Google's revenue and earnings per share and knew the exact information. So Google was actually going to come up short of what Wall Street was estimating. Google was on it. The stock was going up a lot because the Internet was hot and all that,

and they were actually going to miss their quarterly estimates, which never happened. So there was going to be a big short opportunity here on the stock. So we shorted the stock based on that information, and she was correct. All the numbers were perfect. And so a bet against Google. The market went down the next day. Google missed earnings. We knew about it. Right. Made that trade.

So you're three for three. Right. And she had told me before that this contact wanted $15,000. She was going to be somebody else. We're going to have all our sources paid. We're going to have this other guy, this woman. So it's really like this network is forming of how you're going to continue to be able to do this. You're creating systems around managing it. Right.

And it'll kind of pass the shock of giving that money to people like, okay, I'll tell my buddy. You're just acclimating that this is business as usual. You mind if I tell this guy, this trading firm, because they'll, they pass the hat and they'll give me the money and I don't have to write a

check so I can just let them, they make their money and then pass the hat and they'll give me the money and I don't have to write a check. So I can just let them, they make their money and I pass it to her. Like, sure, no problem. So then I see... So another envelope on the street corner? I'm out in California, Silicon Valley at a tech stock conference. Rami's there and here's the 15 in an envelope. And it's cash? Yeah.

I'm actually on the plane going out to San Francisco. It's in my back pocket. It's? Yeah. I'm actually on the plane going out to San Francisco. It's in my back pocket. It's 15 grand. It didn't fit in my two back pockets. I had to put it in all my pockets and my jeans. Go through security fine.

You have to put it in the bucket when you go through security? Oh, my God. No, no. It's in my pockets. What happened was so that I run to the bathroom, put it all in my carry-on. I'm going in. It's in carry-on. I'm going in. It's in a bank envelope. I'm going on the plane to San Francisco.

Excuse me, sir. I was doing random checks of bags. All right, if they find it, I'm going to Vegas. I'm going to go to San Francisco. I'm going to Vegas, and that's why I'm bringing all this cash. Because if you have over $10,000, you have to declare it or something like that. You have to declare it because it could be drug trafficking or whatever. They could take it, I think, if it's over 10 oh wow so there's 15 tsa is going through my bag uh the lady sees the envelope and she just keeps going and says all right she doesn't open

the envelope wow wow yeah so i get on the plane. I'm thinking, what am I doing? Yeah. I mean, do you start questioning? I mean, is there a moment where you're like, I've got to stop this? Or you're just too in? I'm just too in. I'm kind of like, I don't know if I'm not having fun with it, but kind of like the clandestine, moving the money and doing this stuff. It's got its claws in you.

Yeah, yeah. I'm like, I'm not the money and doing this stuff. It's got its claws in you. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, I'm not hurting anybody. This is just something everybody else is doing. I justify it by, it seems like everybody else is doing it at the time. And no phone calls from the SEC. There's no indication that anybody's paying attention. No, it's not being tracked. This is July 2007.

So nothing's July 2007. Nothing's going on. All right. So how many more of these before we get to the point where this starts to unravel? There's one more. So my buddy at the trading firm who I had been passing the roomie con tips to gave me one back in September. 3Com was going to be acquired by Bain Capital out of Boston in September. And so that happened.

And that was the last one. So there was four trades. And so I think we bought half a million shares. It was a $3 or $4 stock, but we still made a good chunk of money on that. And then that was – nobody had to be paid off for that. That was kind of a payback for the other three. And then that was, uh, nobody had to be paid off for that. That was kind of a payback for the other three. And then that was at September, October, 2007. Those four trades are done.

All successful, all profitable every time roomies on point. Right. And, and, and so your fund ends up, uh, coming out of this like 1.7 million. Right. Right. Uh, and how much of that are you taking home yourself? Uh, 3%. So whatever that, uh, uh, whatever that is, a couple hundred thousand. Yeah. Um, cause of the 20%, um, I had, uh,

15% of the 20% so 3% of the overall profits. So that was the compensation for that year. Right. And are you looking over your shoulder thinking, like, any moment this is going to come apart? Or are you thinking, oh, this is, like, you know, easier than I thought? It's easier than I thought. We had a big Christmas holiday party in 2007 to celebrate the firm. I got a couple of toasts. We had a great 2007. And it wasn't until,

I believe it was January 2008, where I got a call from Rumi saying that the SEC had called her about one of those trades. I don't remember which one. And what do you think we should tell them for a cover story? At that point, I'm starting to get a little nervous. Right. Why would they call her about something that you did? Right.

They must be putting the pieces together. Right. Are they calling her? Why would they call an intermediary who, on her own, was not making any trades unless they were on it? Well, she was trading information. She had her own account, right? She didn't have a fund, but she had her own personal stock account. So she was trading all the stocks she was passing to me.

So she said the SEC called her about trades she had placed. I see. One of these four trades that we had done, she had received a phone call and, and then, uh, she was asking me, um, you know, Hey, they mentioned your name and, uh, you know, what should we tell them? Like, what would be our cover story? And I'm going to be in New York in a few weeks. We should meet up and figure out what to tell them. And so I immediately get to work. Um, we had the cover story for Hilton and then kind of tried to figure out what would the other cover stories be for Kronos and Google and 3Com. I got something together. I don't know if it was analyst reports.

I believe Kronos was going to be talking at a stock conference a few days after we bought so we could say, hey, we're buying it because we thought they would sound good at the stock conference. So I had something put together when she came to New York. And she said, I don't think it's going to be a big deal. They're just asking me about these trades. Like, you know, what should we tell them? And at that point, I don't know if she's wearing a wire on me or what's going on. I'm not even thinking about the wire thing

because I haven't been approached by the FBI yet. So she's just asking me what she should tell the SEC. So I tell her what I think she should say. Here's our cover stories. I'm starting to get pretty nervous because it sounds like she's not in a good situation. Although I know she only talks to a few people. Right, you're assuming she's talking to all kinds of people. Yeah.

So you're starting to think this isn't good. This isn't good, but it probably won't get back to me because she'll be able to get out of this. And it's just the SEC and she'll figure out what to say. Right. But now you're starting to look over your shoulder a little bit. A little bit more, yeah. Early 2008. I mean, how does that start affecting your sleep? How does that work? Not so much yet. I'm kind of nervous. I want to do every trade by the book in early 2008, just my own fundamental research. The market's getting pretty every trade by the book in early 2008, just my own fundamental research.

The market's getting pretty bad. In the first quarter of 2008, everything's starting to unravel. So we're actually, as a firm, we're struggling just with our portfolio, and it's very stressful because of that. And then there's added stress of kind of looking over my shoulder, maybe something's, you know, what if we were to get a phone call, what would we say? So that's happening through the early part of 2008. And we're just not doing well as a firm, so it's very stressful. It's the worst market in 75 years, so it's the worst I'd ever seen. And you're trying to play it straight now.

Yeah, we're just sticking by. And your partners as well? Yeah, we're not looking for any more of these. Kind of feeling guilty about it, I think. And then you get the tap on the shoulder. So July 7, 2008, a Tuesday. The Tuesday after July 4, I'm dropping my dry cleaning off. We left at 55th and Broadway. Dropping my dry cleaning off, come back out. And then somebody

says, are you Tom? I turn around. I see a man and a woman in dark suits. Badge comes out. And yeah, the FBI would ask you a few questions can we just go in this Wendy's here and sit down so I sit down with them

kind of like a little bit surreal like my heart's pounding starting to pound a little bit and maybe they're just going to ask me about Rumi or something

like it's not going to be me and they start they're not arresting you they're not throwing you in a car yeah yeah okay I'll talk.

Sure. But is it like the movies feds with the sunglasses? Yeah. Yeah. Like, I mean, trench coats and dark suits. Right, right. Dark suits, flipping the wallet open, FBI. Just want to talk to you about a few things.

Right. Sure. What do you want to talk? Let's talk about it. And they start talking about, hey, we know where you were last weekend. You were down seeing your family, your newborn nephew in Georgia. We know this and that. We know you know this person and that person. We know you did these trades and that.

We can play it for you if you wanted to. We have your voice recorded. Scare tactics. It's like one of those scenes where I can see their mouths moving, but I don't hear what they're saying. I'm just sort of looking, looking around and did they have that? Or that's just a tactic to try to handle that information.

I don't know if they actually, they tapping your phone or like, I didn't make them play what they had. I just believe that they had it. Yeah. And so, uh, their mouths are moving.

I'm not really processing it and sort of snap out of it. And they're talking about, you can either help us or we can arrest you now. Really laying it down on me. Say, guys, I'll help you whatever you want. Yeah, this is all true. Right. So there's no, like, I've got to call my lawyer now? No, it wasn't any of that.

Yeah, it wasn't like, let me get back to you. Can I get your card and call you in 24 hours? Like I was just sort of in a daze, their mouths are moving. I'm thinking about the last couple of months and year and like, Hey, I'll help you. Like, what do you need? Like, uh, they talk about the big ring they're trying to bust and I'll do what I can, uh, to help you out. And they said, that's great. You know, that's, uh, I'll do what I can to help you out. And they said, that's great. You know, that's the best decision you can make.

Well, it's certainly the decision they want you to make. Yes, exactly. Right. Because they know you're, they've got you over a barrel, you know, they know what you were doing, but they're not really concerned about you. They're going after Raj. Right, right. They're going after Raj. So explain a little bit about like who Raj is and Galleon.

Right. Galleon Group was a big technology-focused hedge fund. Raj had a lot of investors who worked in Silicon Valley. And so he had the reputation to be someone who would get maybe better information about companies because he had investors who worked at those companies. So they were incentivized to give him good information about their companies. And so they had a reputation of being one of these funds, maybe crossing the line. And probably were under the – I'd imagine were under the regulatory radar for years just because of those those relationships and because of um some of the trades they had done were uh you know in these big takeovers and but i don't think i guess they were never really able to nail them on anything up until then right and what's going on right now in in uh kind of law enforcement

in new york city in the sec and everything like that is that you have a highly motivated u.s attorney right like preet barara right is like all about it yeah like this is like the mandate these are cases they can win yeah and and trying to clean house in the securities industry is like a major sort of focus of this u.s attorney right that's right yeah so it's kind of like whatever you need, all the resources, you know, at this U.S. attorney's disposal to, like, make all this happen. Yeah, they had started working on Operation Perfect Hedge 2006, I think, and they had been hearing about this type of information going on,

but they needed cooperators to wear wires so so they could wire tap phone it's very hard to get permission to wire tap the phones and so they were looking to use mafia type tactics to to bust this ring um they i guess at first wanted to maybe send an undercover agent to work at the funds but the funds are so the relationships are so tightly knit that you can't really put an agent in there like you could maybe in a boiler room. It wouldn't work. So they needed cooperators, smaller people that they could scare and then get to wear a wire and then get permission to wiretap the phones. Right.

So that's where you come in. This is what they want you to do. Little fish. So you have this meeting with the FBI. I mean, how long does this meeting go for? I think it was like an hour. it seemed like all day and then like so they're like okay and then the meeting's over like and what are you sitting at wendy's by yourself like these i'm like all right i'm gonna go to the office what are you gonna do now yeah so i walk out like i

almost stepped in front of a cab like i'm i just sort of delirious like do you call your wife i mean i just go to the office um because the market's about to open at 930. My partner's probably wondering where I am. So I get in a little bit late. Sorry, this and that, whatever. And so I have this business card. And I'm supposed to call them back so that they make sure that I'm going to be a cooperator and help them out. So I think about it.

I don't tell anybody. I don't tell my wife. to be a cooperator and help them out. So I think about it. I don't tell anybody. I don't tell my wife. Later on, I was told I could tell my wife, my therapist, my priest, but that's it. Which I didn't tell her until later. So I decided, let me call them and tell them I'm fully on cooperation. It seems like this will be my best chance to stay out of jail. I don't know how this is going to go down. I don't know how big it is. They don't really show me the names. I just see a big ring. They show me and like, okay, I can probably.

And you don't try to negotiate at all and say, look, I'm going to help you out, but you got to make sure that, you know, I'm taken care of or I'm not. No, to see I'm all in. You're just, you're just all in and you don't even call a lawyer. call a lawyer. You're not bringing a lawyer into this equation at all. I was approached in July 2008 by the FBI. I hired a lawyer in April of 2009. My lawyer couldn't believe that I had cooperated for a year without any legal counsel, which I think actually helped me.

Yeah, it's highly, highly unusual. But that may have played into everything. I mean, by all accounts, you are extraordinarily cooperative, and that really determined the sentencing. Right, yes, that's right. So it actually helped not to cooperate. Would you recommend that to the erstwhile listener who's expecting a tap on the shoulder? For you up-and-coming insider traders, you might want to take 24 hours to consult an attorney. Because we maybe could have spun this as, oh, Tom thought these were rumors.

Like I wasn't actually talking to anybody at these companies. I was talking to Rumi, who's a rumor monger. But looking at... Had you chose to fight this and say, arrest me, you know. If I had pled not guilty, let's go to trial, I'd be personally bankrupt and I'd be in jail right now because the hit rate was 100% for people going to trial. I think the jury has just looked at these guys and said Wall Street scum and blamed them for what happened in 2008 when really these were cases I think that the U.S. Attorney knew they could win.

They weren't going to go after the heads of the banks selling bad mortgages because it's harder to win. So these were the faces. Raj Rajaratnam is the face of the financial downfall, which isn't really – he was doing bad stuff, but he's not the guy that caused the market to crash. But there's cases they could win, I think. All right. So suddenly you're an informant. Right. And you're harboring this secret.

Your partners don't know. Your wife doesn't even know. I mean, what was the decision to withhold it from your wife? I mean, just fear or shame? Yeah, fear or shame. That first couple of days, I was just thinking how upset my parents are going to be when they find out about this because I was the only child of all my cousins in the South that went to an Ivy League college. And look what I threw it all away. How would I tell my wife about this?

She doesn't know anything about these trades. I don't tell her in 2007 I'm buying Hilton and I don't talk about any of that. So she's going to be shocked. She knows me as straight-laced Tom, the guy she married. It's going to be shocking. So I guess I'm thinking

for a few weeks, how do I break the news to her? I've got to tell her at some point. I've got to tell somebody. I went to St. Patrick's Cathedral a few days later and talked to a priest and said, this is what's happened. And I forgot what he said. But I needed to talk to somebody. I was having panic attacks, waking up, shortness of breath at night. It was bad.

I was thinking about maybe just punching out, like going to the top of the building and jumping off. It was pretty bad. I had struggled with depression in college. It was coming back pretty hard. And to harbor that alone without support is pretty toxic. Right. I was going to trap my friends into telling me legal trades they had done just to save myself. So for the mistakes I had made, I was going to go to colleagues and friends and make them tell me. You could go to anybody on Wall Street at the time and say, tell me about that trade that you traded illegally and somebody would tell you something and I could record it. So it was kind of unlimited how I could help them. And I felt tremendous guilt, tremendous regret.

And I felt tremendous guilt, tremendous regret. And I had some really bad days where I'd go to the elevator and say, push the down button. Don't push the up button. Push the down button. Go down. Go to work. Just keep going. So it was tough for several weeks until I told my wife.

And then that made it a little bit easier to talk to somebody about it. So what was that conversation like? It was a Friday night. I think we were going to go out to dinner. We were just having a drink. I said, so I've got to tell you something about something that's been going on. I just sort of sat back and said the FBI approached me about some trades I did. I'm going to help them out.

I crossed the line, and I. I'm going to help them out across the line. I think we're going to be okay. But to work with them, I'm going to have to take down some of our friends. And it's a really crappy situation, but it's better than our family being separated. So I'm going to put our family over this, and hopefully I don't go to jail. But I'm going to have to take down some colleagues and people that have been friends for years. It sucks. It's like I don't know what you do. It's not like it was the mafia where I'm not a rat and I'll go to jail because I'm not going to rat.

I wasn't even thinking about breaking the law when this happened. I did, but I got to decide friends or colleagues or family or colleagues. And I was like, okay, I'll do what you guys want me to do as long as it hopefully keeps me out of jail. And how did she receive that news? Actually, she was pretty understanding. She wasn't – she kind of processed it a while and said you know I would be really upset if it was something you did to me or something but it's not really that

you really screwed up but we talked about it some more and then she was just absorbed it much better than I expected I told the FBI that I told my wife and they said oh you know if we need to talk to her, let us know.

Because this just breaks up a lot of marriages. No, it's actually like we talked about it a lot. And decided it's the best course of action in a bad situation to do moving forward. So if I didn't have her, or if she had reacted differently, it would have made it that much tougher. Yeah, I would imagine it does break up probably most marriages, right? I mean, she stood by you. You have two daughters. Right.

Right. That was before she was pregnant. And so, yeah, before we were into starting a family. And just to put it into perspective, I mean, you're 32 when this is going on? I was 30. I had just turned 30. I was about to turn 31. Wow.

That July. So it's still beginning of my career relatively. Right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah, you're young, man. And it's over at that July. So it's still the beginning of my career relatively. Right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah, young man. And it's over at that point. The career's over. So I'm thinking at 31 years old, done.

I worked so hard my whole life, public school in Georgia, getting to this top school. I threw it all away in less than 10 years. Unbelievable. But like always in awareness that you, that you were responsible for your own. Yes. That was my own downfall. Yep. I took full responsibility. I didn't blame anybody else. It was, I made those decisions and, uh, there's other guys still working today that did much worse than I did. They're still working. That's just the way I happen to know this lady

who they were looking at and she knew Raj and I was just in that little group there. Right. So when you kind of look at the investment community or the hedge fund community, you know, how rampant would you say this kind of illegal activity is? It was highly rampant. The FBI was aware of it. And I could just say, give me a fund. I'll get you a guy, like whatever you, however far you want this to go.

And they were just trying to lever up on Raj, I think, with other informants. So the ultimate goal is getting Raj, right? And so you're going to be like a ladder on the way up to getting him. So how does it begin? Like they pull you, you go over to the fbi and meet them like talk me through like the actual process of beginning to wiretap okay you know we meet a few

times they get the whole story in all four trades and it's kind of like you go over to the fbi or do you meet them in like secret locations or we just sat like it was a nice summer 2008, so we just sat outside under a table and, okay, boom, give me your life story up to where you did these trades. And then they said, okay, kind of like, whose head can you give us? How helpful can you be as an informant? Because they're kind of skeptical. I'm not plugged into some of these information mafias like maybe some other people are. It was called the Indian Mafia. Clearly don't fit that role, but I was somehow plugged into it.

They said, who can you give us? I thought about guys that I knew were doing this, as I said before, as a business model, always doing this. I felt I justified my cooperation in bringing them down a little bit by saying they're doing it all the time. I did it four times. If I'm going to lose my career over this, I'm going to help the FBI at least try to rid some of the bad guys out. They're doing it all the time. So I gave them a few names I thought I could wear a wire on, and we started that day with the first individual.

And the wire, it's not like the Godfather where it's all around your chest. It's a little like Blackberry Battery. Yeah, so that's what I want to know. I want to know the actual, like, how does it all work? talk about a situation to get the target into a conversation about an illegal trade they did, which these were all people that were in the same trades as me, one of the four trades. So we could rehash like, when I told you about this and you traded on it. So I'm already starting to get these people going in a conversation for something that I told them. If they didn't know me, they wouldn't even be here in this conversation. So

getting them in that conversation, I need to get them to say that they knew it was illegal or knew that we had crossed the line. And the first individual friend... Not just that, not to just discuss an illegal act, an acknowledgement i need them to acknowledge it on the wire yeah and so and the wire itself is it like a little like taped on your chest no it's like a little like a little blackberry battery rectangle things you just drop it like in the pocket shirt pocket you can just drop it in there so if it were to fall out oh my blackberry battery uh so it wasn't like taped on the chest or anything like that interesting um and it's like a transmitter or is it actually recording it on

on that recording it recording on a device and they could play it back yeah um and so uh i i met with the first individual that i knew that i told uh some of these trades to and got him into talking about it a little bit. He was very quiet. And so my first time they listened to it and they said, Tom, you're talking nonstop. You have to let him talk. I'm nervous, so I'm just filling in the – I don't like the silence. I'm just filling in the silence.

You have to – if he's going to be silent for a minute or two, just let him think about his answer and don't talk. So I kind of mucked it up a little bit the first few times, like I'm just getting used to it. I'm nervous doing this. But you put this little thing in your chest pocket, right? You have the conversation, and then you go hand-deliver this device to the FBI. And you have some kind of drop arrangement?

Just back into the car. They're usually in the car outside and dropping off to them and see tomorrow, like what time should we meet? But they're not listening. It's not transmitting. So they can't be listening to it live. They listen to it afterwards. Yeah. Yeah.

And they say kind of like how I did, you know, and I wasn't good in the beginning and I got better when I'm doing it a few times. But at some point you get really pretty good at this. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Cause I mean, you, you're basically, the work that you did is responsible for over two dozen prosecutions. Right. Right. So what I did, um, what I did, um, specifically is I did this, uh this type of wire conversation with maybe four individuals. But one or two of these individuals, when they were approached similarly to me, one of the individuals actually opened this entire expert network of 20 individuals to the FBI. So I actually get credit for opening up this network to them because I

introduced him to this person. So it's not like the articles about me to say I did all this stuff, but I didn't even like really know that that would happen until I talked to my friend who then knew. Right. So, so basically like you get somebody on record saying what they shouldn't, and they bust that guy and then they do the same thing with that guy that

they do with you and they're just inching their way up do the same thing with that guy that they do with you, and they're just inching their way up. Yeah, they look at this guy and say, can he help us or should we arrest him? If he can't help us, we're going to arrest him. He's going to jail. If he can help us, we'll approach him like we did myself on the street. And do you have, like, two sort of point people at the FBI that you're interfacing with? I mean, do you ever go in and meet with Preet, the U.S. Attorney's Office?

No, not until later after I hired a lawyer that I meet with the AUSAs. So I'm just interfacing with a few people in the FBI on the case. And meanwhile, you're not having any conversations about like, look, man, are you going to still prosecute me? No, I'm not asking about the outcome for me. You're just basically like whatever you need. Whatever you need. It's my second job.

I'm going to be in California next week for a stock conference. I know this guy out there who trades in all this stuff. I can get him in a situation where he's going to tell me about a lot of, oh, they were on the plane with me flying out with me to California. Like, this sounds good. out with me to California. Like, this sounds good. So I got an individual out there in a conversation about several stocks that he had traded illegally, people that he was talking to inside companies, their names, and also like how he was hiding money in some island or something. So I was talking to him for a while. We were in his car one night. I was asking him a lot of questions.

He's like, Tom, are you wearing a wire or something? Like, why are you asking me all these questions? Is that the first time somebody sort of called you out a little? That time. You think you were just getting too comfortable with this role? I think I was like. That you were being a little less careful? Yeah, I was just peppering him with questions about, oh, how do you. Because he knew that I had come to him with some of the trades in 2007.

So Tom kind of has his sources now too. And so I'm trying to get from him, how do you hide the money on these trades? Because I need to know for myself because I have these sources. So I've got to know in the future how you do this. And so I'm trying to learn how to do all the illegal stuff. Can you tell me? And he was kind of skeptical. Why are you asking me all these questions?

I said, oh, I just just wondering what I know for myself. Did he shut down on you or did he ultimately answer them? No, he ultimately answered them, yeah. And then there was another instance with an individual in New York, the first individual who I wore a wire on, who was skeptical. I wasn't doing that well getting information from him. And so he lives in Greenwich, Connecticut. And then one Sunday he's like, can you come up?

Let's grab dinner. Can you come up tonight? So I took the train up to Greenwich from New York. And he picks me up in his car and he says, let's go. Why don't we go swimming? I said, okay. He's like, let's go to my mom's house. She has a big house.

So it's this big, empty, quiet house in Greenwich. He's got swim trunks for me. He's putting his swim trunks house so it's this big empty quiet house in greenwich he's got swim trunks for me he's putting his swim trunks on he's like get changed so clearly he wants to see if there's something strapped to my chest right right this is all artifice to like figure out what's really going on yeah yeah so he's skeptical i think of my intentions and uh he's like get changed i'm like i'll go to the bathroom he's like no you can change in here like so i'm there like naked getting changed i'm able to say i gotta go to the bathroom real quick take the thing out of my pocket put in my shorts and get changed in the bathing suit and then we go out

in the swimming pool and throw the tennis ball it's very awkward very like i'm kind of looking around it's a big quiet house like is there a ditch dug or something or what's right so you can pull a gun on you or yeah knock me out with a shovel or something or is it yeah like i'm feeling pretty like i never really felt like i was in danger until this point like he seems a little crazy this whole thing and like we're in this big quiet house and i don't know what's going on let's go in the swimming pool is i don't know like so what's he what is he saying to you and then so out in the swimming pool he I don't know. So what is he saying to you? And then so out in the swimming pool, he's talking about, have you been approached by the SEC?

I say, no, not the SEC. They don't tell him anything. I'm like, okay. So to make sure you're not wearing wire stuff. Oh, it's cool. Whatever. So I didn't record any of that conversation because it was back in my shorts. Is that like the scariest moment in the wiretapping career? So I didn't record any of that conversation because it was back in my shorts.

Is that like the scariest moment in the wiretapping career? That was, yeah. I was in other situations where I didn't feel like I was talking with somebody. I would have been scared, I think, to go up against a billionaire just because of their means. But that was the most scared I felt because it was just a really awkward day and i wasn't sure what he was getting at and i could tell you wanted to see if i was wearing a wire that uncertainty of not knowing like what exactly is going on like that feeling of being out of control right right and i would imagine at this time you know you sort of traded in this whatever

dissonance you were harboring over making these illegal trades initially and, you know, whatever kind of like moral consternation that caused you for this new level of anxiety and stress of, you know, snitching on your friends and your colleagues. And also this, you know, idea of getting possibly caught doing it and the danger that that's putting you in. Right. And how is this starting to affect your mental disposition, your emotional life? It's still not good. I'm not having the, should I go up or down at the elevator thoughts anymore? I'm kind of past the suicidal thoughts. I'm doing this.

I'm just telling myself it's going to help me in the end. But at the same time, it's just tormenting to know I'm getting these guys in situations that are going to ruin their careers just like I did. And I'm bringing them down for mistakes I made, which doesn't seem right. And you can't really disclose who those people are, right? You can't really talk about that. But certainly, you know, this is what's happened, right? Like you have friends that you have now sort of devastated their lives as a a result of this i mean do you do you interact with them now like do you see them is there any communication there's nothing i'm not allowed to communicate with any of those guys anymore uh

there's an individual whose name came out later who i reflect on conversations i had before the fbi approached me who was really peppering me with questions. So I think he was the instigator, maybe wearing a wire on me. Right. But I don't feel any ill will or he had to do when he was in the same situation, I'm sure, family or friends. Yeah. And like he had to do what he had to do against me and I had to do what I had to do against the other guys.

And at some point, it becomes sort of public knowledge that there's this guy out here somewhere. There's some guy who's ratting, right? Yeah. He's called Tipper X. Right. And who is Tipper X? Who's this mole? Right.

Because it connects two big networks. Because guys are going down all over the place. Yeah. And, I mean, is there a concerted effort in the community to try to root this guy out? There is, yeah. I mean, is that what going to Greenwich was about? And, you know, how close do they come to figuring to root this guy out? Is that what going to Greenwich was about? How close do they come to figuring out that it's you?

Nobody really did. The Tipper X thing started in 2009. In October 2009, Raj was arrested. So how did it finally get up to Raj? It was a result of all of these people, but ultimately you didn't have any personal interaction with Raj, right? No, that's right. I was able to help them out with Rumi Khan enough, I think, to get leverage on her that she could really give them the goods on Raj.

I think there was other informants that worked on Raj, when I understood. Right, but Raj is not going down without the work that you did. Right, yeah, because one of the main people to bring him down was Rumi. And for them to really get Rumi to cooperate, they needed somebody else on her. So I was one removed from Raj that way. And then my cooperation on this individual in California, another individual, opened up this entire and started cheering.

So if you look online, there's an infographic of who knows who. There's the Raj, and then there's Tom Holland and Tipper X. I saw that. Who published that? Because I remember seeing that a long – was that in Vanity Fair? There was something. It might have been in Vanity Fair. Yeah, I think it was incredibly complicated.

Yeah, yeah. It was a big ring. And so I was – And Tipper X is like at the middle of it. Between, yeah. Right. Between it all, right? Right, right, right.

Yeah. And like I was only talking about – Did that come out when you were at the middle of it. Between, yeah. Right. Between it all, right? Right, right, right. Yeah. And like, I was only talking about- Did that come out when you were in the middle of it, though? I mean, what was that like to open up? Okay, so. It was, I had started cooperating in July 2008, and then January 2010, it was Tipper X. We figured out who it is. And so I was given a heads up the day before that article was coming out.

Every week, there was a few names released, and they said you're going to be the only name released tomorrow, so it's probably going to be all over CNBC. You may want to – reporters are going to be calling you, coming to your house. But when does Tipper X become like vernacular? Like everybody – people are talking about Tipper X. October 2009, Roger's arrested.

The information is presented on him by the feds, like how they think he's linked in this network. And then so some names are public, some names aren't. My name was still sealed at that point, so it was Tipper X. So one of the articles said, oh, there's this Tipper X who seems to be very important to this prosecution. And who is Tipper X? So so that was from just from October to January. Right. And then I got the word that my name would be unsealed in January, 2010.

And what is that decision about? Like, why did they have to unseal that? It was just part of, I think, as far as who they were targeting for arrest that year and what information needed to be made public. It was just my time to be unsealed. And I think they felt like I had already done all I could. So, I mean, obviously I couldn't be unsealed if I was still wearing wires. Right. So we've used you up. Yeah.

We've gotten out of you what we're going to get out of you. Now it's time to arrest you. Right. Basically. It's time to unseal your name. Because up to this point, you. Now it's time to arrest you. Right. It's time to say your name. Because up to this point, you weren't arrested yet. No, no. I wasn't processed until – well, I was processed in December of 2009,

so that was a month before my name became public. But that wasn't really an arrest. I turned myself in. You get fingerprinted. You go through the U.S. Marshal's office. You plead your honor. I plead guilty. But turning yourself in, I mean, at some through the U.S. Marshal's office, you plead, Your Honor, I plead guilty. But turning yourself in, I mean, at some point the FBI says, you've got to come in now.

Yeah, you've got to come in and be processed. So that was just one day in December 2009. And you're not like, what do you mean? Come on, look what I did. You're not going to like. I'm really going to still get the felony? Like, yeah, can't you just, I never. And they say, yeah, you're still going and they they say yeah you're still gonna get

still getting it maybe you won't go to jail i mean along the way though are they saying wow you're really you know delivering the goods here you're doing a good job like i mean what is the like do you befriend these guys in the fbi what's that relationship like it's a weird like stockholm system it is yeah like sort of thing right yeah they're saying doing a good job uh what else you got uh always pushing you yeah yeah and so at some point after about four of these guys uh kind of said i don't i don't have anybody i mean i think i've done a lot i haven't talked to a lawyer at that point to tell me yeah you've done i can't believe you still hadn't talked to a lawyer at all i just felt like it would be in my best interest.

Is your wife saying, I think you should go? No, she doesn't want to know too much about it. I think she just, you know, I tell her what I'm doing, but I don't tell her, hey, I wore a wire on this guy and that guy. I don't want to burden her with that. guy i don't want to burn her with that and then and did the fbi ever try to get you to go do something that just was too dicey where you just had a little bit of panic and like backing out of it they evaluated all the potential risk of every person to be wearing a wire on if it would be really risky too risky to do and so they invented that out pretty well so they weren't going to make me uh go sit with Raj or something. Right.

That I felt pretty comfortable, other than the situation with the swimming pool, which is just awkward. Mm-hmm. And so, yeah, it was kind of like a second job. Like, I joke with them a little bit about this and that. And, oh, I thought I was going to fall out here. And, oh, my neck was all red here, so maybe that person knew. Yeah, so you're having this collegial kind of relationship with these guys. I'm still going down, but it's like... Right.

Yeah. That's wild, man. Yeah, so it's like I still got my job through July 2008 to February 2009, so I'm still going in the office. And they're none the wiser. No, nobody knows what's going on. I'm not doing well at work. It's a bad market.

I'm not picking good stocks. My brain isn't at work at all. So by February 2009, my partner's like, dude, you're not here. I don't know what happened to you, but I've got to let you go. I understand. And at that time, I kind of think my name could be coming out any day. So you let them let you go. Yeah.

Yeah. I was actually going to quit the day that they fired me. So I had actually packed up all everything Friday, Sunday. My partner sends me an email saying, don't come in Monday. You're done. We'll send you all this stuff home. And he's like, where's all your stuff? It's gone.

Wow. Yeah. So we, it was weird because I wasn't going to quit that Monday. The fund wasn't doing well. I was so stressed out about this other thing I was doing. And I just felt like I couldn't handle going to work, not doing well. Right. So how much time between that and when all of this goes public?

Like your name gets revealed, you're arrested, all of that. Laid off February 2009. Name is public January 2010, so almost 11 months later. So what's that day like? So they tell me the night before. The articles come out online that night. They're going to be in the print papers the next day. Tipper X unveiled, Tom Harden, phones ringing off the hook, emails. One of the reporters, I believe it was from the New York Times,

I had a family blog about, we just had our daughter, so I'm putting up cute photos of my relatives in the South. He goes on and puts in the article, Tom's wife's name is this, his daughter's name is this. He's trying to get me to respond. It's pretty low. And when your name went public, had you turned yourself in already? Yeah. So I turned myself in December 2009, and my name was public a month later. I got you. All right. But that morning I wake up for CNBC, like I'm preparing for it. I hadn't told my parents, but I had told my father-in-law and mother-in-law. And so I see this news about this Haitian earthquake, and it's all Haiti earthquake, nothing about Tipper X.

So it happened to be that day. So the news cycle saved you a little bit. Yeah, yeah. So it was on the front of C1, a Wall Street Journal, Tipper X revealed, not Hardin. So plenty of people read the Wall Street Journal, never saw it because they're not following the case. So Tipper X skipped the article.

So only a few people actually in the industry even emailed me saying, saw your name or hope you're doing okay. A lot of people didn't even see it because if you're not following the case and my name is in the headline. Right. Yeah. But you got to pick up the phone and call your parents. I didn't, I waited for a while. And unfortunately the way they found out was my youngest brother was kind of skeptical of me being out at work. Um, so my daughter was born October, 2009. And so I said, Oh, my thing to everybody is I ought to be a stay at home dad for a while, figure out what I want to do. My brother kind of skeptical. Oh, you know, went to Wharton and all this, like, you know, I don't think

he's staying at home. Yeah. And so he's Googling me, finds the story, Tipper X revealed, sends it to my parents. And my mom calls me, oh my God, because it says like he could go to jail for 20 years or whatever it is maximum. Like, I'm sure this is tearing up your marriage. I'm so sorry. Like, not the way I wanted to figure it out. I guess I was hoping that they would never find out. Right. But that's like, that's denial at its finest.

Yeah. Right? Yeah. And I wanted to tell them. I kept saying, next time they're here, they were divorced, but they would each visit twice a year to see the baby. And I'll tell them in person. I don't want to say it over the phone. It's easier to explain in person.

But it's that thing where the longer you wait, the harder it becomes. Right. And then eventually they find out the wrong way. Yeah. So that's like 2011. You couldn't get it together to actually just do it. Right. And let them know.

Like over a year after my name was public, did they find out? But that sounds pretty understanding from your mom to say, you know, I'm concerned about your marriage as opposed to like, how could you do this? Yeah. Like I saw,

like you're going to go to jail for a long time because she sees, ah, Tom could go to jail for 20 years because it's two counts. But, yeah, like I'm so sorry you guys had such a great marriage. Like I can't believe it's going to be torn apart. Right. So I call her back and kind of have to explain the situation. And I'm so sorry I didn't tell you before.

I didn't want to worry you like this. And then I said, please don't tell Dad. I'll tell him when he's coming in a month to visit. I want to tell him in person. And she's like, I had to tell your dad. I'm like, oh, God, not the way I wanted it to go down. And so I call him, and she just doesn't understand how this could have happened, how I could have crossed the line like that. It's not the boy that he raised and like he was

pretty upset mm-hmm and so it's over the phone too so it's really hard to explain and oh but everybody was doing it dad like come on like right yeah now he doesn't understand that like other friends of mine are just shocked that I'm involved in this like this like doesn't make sense like Tom's like picks the stocks fundamentally like I can't believe you went overboard and what do you like discern from that in terms of you know how human behavior works like if you can look at yourself and say you know I didn't think that I was somebody who would make that choice, and my friends and my family members didn't think that I was somebody who was capable of doing that,

what is the lesson or what is the forewarning? I think anybody is capable of it. Anybody in my shoes at that time that was getting caught up and seeing everybody else make these trades in 2006 and kind of wanting a little bit of, I kept telling to myself in my head, I'll scrape some crumbs off the table. It's not going to hurt anyone. It's a crime, but there's no victims.

Even at court sentencing, the judge asked the prosecutor, are there any victims? No, Your Honor, there's no victims. You sort victims like sort of think this is a felony with no victims is there anything else like that like other white collar crime made off there's victims but wow okay but it is in this country it's felony and uh i think anybody you know um a few people have told me or I've heard people tell other people, like, oh, I would never cross that ethical line, or I think you don't know until you're there, and what you'll do, and how you'll justify it to yourself, and I'm kind of shocked that I got to

the point where I could be on the street handing an envelope, and kind of saying, this isn't me, point where I could be on the street handing an envelope and kind of saying this isn't me I'm not doing this like but uh I felt like a lot of me is still the same person before all this happened so it's uh not like I was an evil guy and uh setting out in this big premeditated um uh scam to try to do all these trades I was was just sort of answering the phone, and she said this, and I placed a trade and make the money, and it kind of fell on itself. But I don't think, I think it could happen to anybody if you're not careful and if you're not

pretty well ethically grounded. ethically grounded. When you reflect back on it, I mean, what are the, you know, how do you feel about yourself? Like, what are the emotions that you experience? I'm often angry because there's still guys working that did it much worse than me, and they were just in the right web of people that were not in the radar.

So I feel sometimes resentment, like, wow, they're at their careers now. They're 37 and making all this money, and that's not fair because— Resentment. And at the same time, I'm not glad it happened, but I've been able to spend this time. My daughters are five and three with them. A lot of my buddies live on a plane. The nanny raises the children, which everybody has to do what they have to do for their family. But to have this time with them has been great so there's been some positives um you know i was 215 pounds at the end of my career and to find running and to get in shape and right i want to get into that i mean i can't imagine you were 215 you're a beanpole yeah you Yeah, so Tipper X goes public.

Raj gets toppled. You're in the news. You're in the public eye. It's all out. Your parents are finding out. And you're persona non grata, and you're unemployed. Right. So how do you wake up the next day and move forward?

Like how do you figure out how you're going to start to piece your life back together? You've been sentenced. You're a felon. You've been out of work for quite a while. Right, out of work at least over a year then. I'm trying to figure out. I'm sending out resumes nonstop, but it's a nonstarter. Anybody that calls me back, you know, you have to fill out

the application. Have you ever been convicted of a felony? Yes, but please still talk to me. Not at that job market, no. That's a non-starter. So all the 2010 resumes are going out. Any inroads that I'm making pretty close to jobs, okay, let us know when you get sentenced. And at the time, I'm thinking it's always a few months away, and it keeps getting pushed out, 2011, 2012, 2013, up to 2015. So I can't piece together. It's still a problem now. What's my next career going to be?

And nothing's happening. Because I understand if I'm a potential employer, this guy's coming to me with a felony, and maybe he's a good guy, but I can't hire this person because if I'm sentencing, oh, Tom now works with XYZ, oh, they're in the news. Also, if anything ever happened, the employer's on the hook saying, you know, why did you, you knew you hired this guy? Right, I can tell them I think I'm not going to jail, but they don't know that.

Yeah. Yeah. So, so nothing, nothing moved on that, has moved on that needle from 2010 to 2015. And at some point running comes into the picture. Yeah, so I'm going to stay-at-home dad, 2010, putting on weight, just not eating well, not sleeping well, just depressed, I guess. But depression is not just like a cavalier depressed, like clinically depressed. I think so. I didn't talk to anybody. I probably should have talked to a medical professional

and at least dealt with it that way. But I think so. I didn't talk to anybody. I probably should have talked to a medical professional and at least dealt with it that way. I was depressed. I think I was 190 at the start of 2010. I got up to 215 by 2011. I decided... Just sitting on the couch and eating junk food? Just not exercising. Just my metabolism finally caught up. I was a soccer player my whole life, and up until age 30, I stopped exercising at age 18. Didn't make the team at Penn, so it didn't matter until I was 30, 31, typical guy. 33, I just carried my daughter around

out of breath. End of 2010, I had a pulmonary embolism scare where I couldn't breathe and had to go to the hospital. My wife had to come home. My mother-in-law had to watch my daughter. Then I went into January 2011

for my first annual physical since age 18, typical guy didn't go to the doctor unless something was wrong. He's like, you know, you're the BMI thing. You're obese, overweight on the line. What do you mean? Like I'm a skinny guy. Like, no, you're not technically obese, technically obese. Cause five, 10 to 15 was right on that line. Like, Oh my God. Like, he's like, you know, um, I could tell you how it's going to go down. You're going to be 40 and getting in all the prescriptions medication for high blood pressure. And it runs in my family and, uh, cancer has been in my family. And this is, this is what I see. Like,'re going to have the sleep apnea probably when you're 39, 40, 41.

You're the machine. It's scaring me, which is good. And then my wife, as I said, was a swimmer in college. And she had run a few times a week and kind of did the 5K here and there. And so I told her after that, like, I'm going to sign up for the gym she's like oh it's January yeah you of course you are yeah January you and everybody else so I said no I'm going to sign up and see if I can just start walking a little bit and try to get some of this weight off and she said you know in April one of the towns next to us there's this 5k like maybe

just try to get up to running three miles or something like that. It's a great thing to put on the calendar. Sure, I'll try that. Then I got where the first 10 pounds get down to 200. I can actually run a mile and then get outside a little bit and run two miles and feel better. Then I break 30 minutes in my first 5K or whatever and feeling some sense of accomplishment, like, okay, I've lost 20 pounds now and my knees aren't hurting anymore.

And then I kind of start to get the bug, like, what's next, like a 10K, something like that? Like, okay, the 10K, let's do that next month and like get up to six miles and that was terrible it's like that was twice the amount that i ever run and what's after that like the half marathon like i'll just sign up for one i'd never run further than like seven miles you know i did in the half marathon like i walked like the last five miles, but whatever I accomplished, I did it and, uh, uh, started just losing more weight. So I was done like probably 30 pounds by that point. It was feeling pretty good. And, um, still, uh, kind of eating whatever, because, Hey, I was running. So, uh, running to eat and,

uh, did the half marathons for a while and then kind of got pretty good at the half marathon, where I thought maybe that half marathon time would translate to my Boston qualifier time with the marathon, and then decided early 2013 to sign up for my first marathon and train for that. And I got the 310 was the BQ when I got to 308. The problem was the bombings happened at Boston that year, so everybody in the world who was a 230 marathoner signed up for 2014.

The cutoff was eight seconds faster than what I had run, so didn't make it into Boston. Eight seconds. So I decided to run a marathon in the year. It was like the toughest cutoff ever. Oh, wow. So I missed it by eight seconds in 2014 and then missed it again by like six seconds for this year.

Oh, you did? So I didn't really improve that much. I had a bad race the next year. And then so I did. So 2013, first marathon was in May. And then I went to the library to start reading running books. And then Eat and Run uh eat and run it's there and right read that like sort of said like oh what you oh what you eat affects how you feel like wow like what a

revelation this guy has run all these you know 165 miles in 24 hours when all these ultras and he's eating uh um like it's called vegan or something like that i told my wife she said what is that like I don't know. It's like, yeah, some of those recipes, like Scott had some recipes in his book and like, oh, I'll try that and this and that. And I brought it back to the library and the librarian's like, there's this other book.

Like, oh, this guy's vegan too. Yeah. I'm always the follow up. Follow up. If you like this, you might like this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So I read your book, and I told my wife, so there's the only two books in Ultra Running in the library, and both these guys have the same type of diet. That's really interesting. Do the math. Yeah, yeah. And so I looked into it and then looked online, and there was the RIPs book, like 28 days to get there.

I'm like, this seems pretty doable. Like the dairy and then the chicken and like the meat was easy, but the dairy is tough to get rid of. Yeah, dairy is definitely hard. So you did the Engine 2 thing. I did the Engine 2 for the four weeks and got through it. So you'd lost a bunch of weight doing just the running, but then what was the difference when you decided to, like, adopt that? I just started running as many miles as I could every week,

and, like, it wasn't affecting me. So I got up to 55 miles a week when I was still eating meat in that marathon, my first marathon. I got up to 70 miles a week in the fall marathon when I had been, I would say, like, 80% plant-based. On the weekend, if we went out to dinner in a restaurant, I'd reward myself with whatever. And then in early 2014, I started running like 100 miles a week, and I was recovering. I was being smart.

I was, you know, like 80% easy, 20% hard, five days easy, two days hard. So I wasn't ever doing the training, but the mileage was going nuts. Like no coach would ever have told me to go from 55 to 100 peak in a year but i was feeling really good and um ended up breaking three hours in the marathon last fall and uh i still felt like i was in better shape than that but whatever marathon's really hard to predict. Now this year, I just ran 130 miles last week. I feel fine.

I don't know how to explain it. I found an elite marathoner's plan. I think I can do this if I wake up early enough. I don't want to do a marathon now. I'd like to wait and give it a year to see if I could do the next 10 minute increment down to below 250. So I found, I was looking for ultra marathons and, you know, in California, you run up mountains, run up down mountains in New York,

New Jersey. It's like, you run around these timed events, flat ultras. So I found this race and I'd never done an ultra and it said 12 hours or 24. signed up for 12 and then i told a buddy i don't know if you know him he did epic five last year chris solars uh i know the name it was two guys from new york last year i don't know him personally and so i sent him um he's like what are you running i'm like i just i'm willing to go up to like 150 miles this spring i think i think i can do it he's like, what are you running? I'm like, I just, I'm willing to go up to like 150 miles this spring. I think, I think I can do it. He's like, oh, you have to run the 24 hour, not the 12 hour. Oh. So, yeah. So I emailed the race director just last week and I'm doing the 24.

Wow. When is that? May 16th. And if you run 135 miles, you qualify for the national team. And like, I think I can do it. Like I've never run, I mean, raced above a marathon, but I mean, can do it like I've never run I mean raced above a marathon but I mean it's probably I probably hopefully will do it in my life but maybe not this time but I have this ridiculous goal and I really think like I can run I can do it like I don't know I can explain

how I'm running all these miles but it's right, right. It's working. I don't know. Well, the biggest difference between what you were doing before with your running and what you're doing now is what you're eating. Yes. Right. And so you're experiencing this extraordinary recovery time. You're ramping up. I mean, you're doing, there are very few people on the planet that are running more miles a week than that. Right. You know, so you're, you're, you're peaking out. Yeah. I mean, there's not much more you can do. No, I mean, I don't want to do more because then I'm doing doubles every day, and I can't do triples because I have the kids watching.

I don't want to. You didn't run here from New Jersey. No, I didn't. Didn't do that. But I plan to get up to 150 at my peak week, and I think I can manage that with Friday, Saturday, Sunday marathons, back to back to back. And I think if I can do that, then I feel good about running the 135 but it may not happen this time but i think i can get there and it's

just so nice to have this crazy goal that only like 15 guys ran that much last year and it's funny like the trail ultras and the flat ultras a completely different world like the guys that ran these flat ultras big mileage aren't the same names as the trail ultras it's yeah it's different it's a different sport, kind of. Like what Killian Jornet does and Timothy Olsen, like, you know, they're jackrabbits. It's a different thing. Right, and so around New Jersey, it's like, I'm going to go out to the state fairgrounds, run a mile, and get heckled by people eating funnel cake.

Like, why are you exercising? My friends will be out there with their PBRs. What are you doing? Where are you running from? There's a certain mental discipline with that, though, because you have to combat that, the inevitable, the repetitive boredom of it. Yeah, yeah. That makes it different. But that's rather extraordinary. So I'm interested in, in exploring like the relationship between,

you know, the running and the diet and kind of how you're navigating this purgatory that you're in right now and how that's, you know, sort of a self. Um, yeah, so my diet, uh, went basically all plant-based last year, running more miles. The part of my life that's still a problem is the employment part. I've got sort of physical taking care of, emotional is pretty good, mental. It's all pretty good now, but it's just not where it should be. But the main holdback of my life right now is employment i'm just hoping it sounds silly but i'm hoping if i keep running something good will happen but but how is the running like helping you like emotionally like oh it's cope with everything

it's great um uh kind of getting out um for like an hour and a half in the morning and an hour at night and uh i don't know if i'm it's not i don't know if i'm meditating but i'm kind of getting out for like an hour and a half in the morning and an hour at night. And I don't know if I'm meditating, but I'm kind of getting into a zone where I look down and five miles go by and it feels like five minutes. In that active meditative state. I think so, yeah. I'm running a lot of loops, so I have a lot of half-mile loops to get ready for the mile loop race and just not worrying about traffic or stoplights. I'm just going and going and going. Um, it's like, uh, very therapeutic. Um, and so I

come into the craving, the endorphins now, and, um, it's really helping me deal with, um, the situation of, of having some uncertainty or major uncertainty now to what my next career is going to be. I feel conflicted a little bit. Like maybe I should just run, be running singles and spend the other part of the day looking for work or something. But, um,

I feel so good doing this, uh, that I hope it's going to lead to something. I hope my next career has something running related to it. And my kids think it's pretty cool. I want to set a good example for them to be fit and to have goals. And everybody I tell this goal to now, most of them aren't runners. But because you're unemployed, this gives structure to your day.

It does, yeah. And a sense of purpose outside of just family. It does, right. And child rearing that I would imagine kind of anchors your perspective. It does, yeah. Like by 7 a.m. I've already accomplished like lot like for the day and uh it gets my day going and uh you know i'm up uh 4 30 and uh have my herbamate tea and uh i just uh spend a few minutes just uh drinking my tea and then uh either my wife goes out for her run or I go out for mine. And it's just a nice, quiet time.

And then at 7 a.m., I've run 10 or 15 miles or whatever, and I feel like I've accomplished something for the day. It keeps me really grounded and ready to think about what to do that day. that day. So the events of your life and these decisions that you've made have led to a place where, you know, the life that you're leading couldn't be more distinct from the life of the hedge fund manager, right? Like the idea of getting up and quietly sipping your yerba mate in a meditative state is not, you know, it's not what a hedge fund manager does, right? So I see it as, quite frankly, it's a spiritual evolution. I really look at it like that, and this is happening for a reason, whatever that reason may be. And now you're in this place where you've been compelled to look at yourself in the mirror and you're and evaluate you know these choices that you've made and adjust accordingly and now you're making these different choices about your daily lifestyle habits that have kind of crafted a completely different individual right so when

you look back on your former life like if somebody said to you here you know what i know you're a felon but you know forget about the legalities of it like in a in a utopian world if somebody said to you here, you know what, I know you're a felon, but you know, forget about the legalities of it. Like in a, in a utopian world, if they said, you know what, here's your, here's your job back at this really nice hedge fund. I could do it. Yeah. I don't, I don't think I'll ever be able to take a desk job anymore. Um, I say that, but if it's the best thing for my family and I get, you know, a job I can't turn down, I'm going to have to figure out how to work the running around it. But I can't imagine going back and doing what I was doing before. With all the other stuff aside, like if I'm just doing legitimate work and back at the firm, I can't.

Because? Just because I'm a new person now. What is the difference? I found a passion. I was just kind of going about my day. What is the difference? I found a passion. I was just kind of going about my day. I guess my passion changed. I was passionate about the market.

I miss a lot of the people I work with. And now I have something new that's come out of this last couple of years. And I'm just not into the same things I was in before. Um, I'm just not, uh, into the same things I was in before. I've kind of found a new, um, new passion in life. Uh, I guess it's not something I needed to go to business school for, but it's... Can you find gratitude in that? Uh, I think so. Yeah. Um.

But you're not quite there yet. Not quite there yet. I'm not, yeah. But you're not quite there yet. Not quite there yet. Do you think that you'll look back someday and think, I'm grateful that all of that happened because now I'm living this completely different life? I hope to be there. So you're not there yet? You're not, yeah, yeah. I still have a lot of regret and I still feel bad about what I had to do.

But at the same time, I'm not at that dark place of looking at the elevator button and that's all behind me. And my children know who I am. I'm like president of the PTA at the preschool, organizing the fundraisers for the dad. Yeah, you're like super dad. Yeah, doing the dad thing with all the moms. And the community volunteering and all that kind of thing. Right, right.

Recognized by the community. So most of those people, I mean, they still, even with all the articles that come out, they're not going to know about. If they do, I mean, if somebody has a problem with it, it's their problem. I guess it's lucky also that your daughters are so young that it's not, you know, by the time they're of the age to understand everything, like this will be, you know, quite distant. Yeah, I think so. I always think about how am I going to tell them when obviously they're too young, but it's a good lesson for them, I guess. Have you thought about like how you would talk to them about what happened? How that conversation is going to go when they're old enough?

I haven't thought about it yet because they just know daddy's at home, mommy works. And I say daddy used to work and they laugh. Daddy's don't work. Or daddy's work but you don't work. You stay with us. I haven't thought about how I'd try to explain that to them I just try to set a good example now

and hope they grow up and make better decisions than I made I was talking to a priest about it at a pretty low time in 2008 at our church and he said Tom 99% of your life you did the right thing 1% of your life you did something bad

don't let 1% define your life I did the right thing, 1% of your life you did something bad. Don't let 1% define your life. I thought that was pretty good advice. Don't let four decisions you made, getting caught up in things and having a lapse in judgment, define. And it defined my life, I think, 2008 up until when I started running. And now I'm not letting those decisions define my life. It's still a major hindrance on finding my next, uh, career and where that's going to go. What's the, uh, what's the, what's the dream job then? Like the realistic dream job. I'd like to have some combination of maybe, uh,

I'd like to have some combination of maybe, uh, running coach and maybe getting my, uh, plant-based nutrition certificate from Cornell or some of that combination like that. But I'll have to run the 135 before I'm legitimate coach. I think I haven't done anything yet. I think it's a pretty realistic goal for you. Yeah, I think so. You know? Yeah. I mean, there's nothing stopping you from getting the certificate. Right, right. You can do that anytime. Yeah, I think that's what I'd like to be doing. I've always enjoyed helping people. I volunteer at the church when I can and move clothes around. I know you're so familiar with just the epidemic that this country has with obesity. And if I could help people out, and I try to lead by example.

I don't try to push this diet on anyone. My wife doesn't do it. My kids don't do it. I just try to lead by example and say, hey, I'm not getting injured. Maybe it's because I went out eating. And so I have like a little running club and nobody runs more than maybe 70 miles and what are you doing? Like, right.

Actually, why are you doing elite marathon or mileage? I'm able to do it. I don't know. Like, it's just, uh, maybe I'm built for this type of event or something. I don't know, but, um, it's, uh, it's going to lead to something, I hope. If you could go back and, uh, greet yourself on your first day at the hedge fund, what, what would the advice be that you would give the younger version of yourself, uh, with everything that you've, you know, experienced?

Right. With everything that you've experienced. Right. Do the right thing. Stick to your fundamental research, but also follow your passion in life. But you wouldn't have even known. At that point, you wouldn't know what your passion was. You would have identified your passion as just being... Picking stocks.

Yeah, like basically doing what you were doing, right? Right, right. And it took an extraordinary dismantling of your life for you to get to a place where you could even begin the process of trying to truly explore what your passion might be or who you really are outside of this world, this costume that you're putting on every day. It's a tough position because somebody asked me, are you happy or not happy, but are you glad this all happened?

And there's a lot of positives that come out of it, but I'm not glad to have a felony. Nobody would say that. So if I could go back and talk to my 30-year-old self, 29-year-old self, yeah, I could say, oh, she's going to call you in 2007. Don't do those trades. But I think anybody at the time would have been very tempted to do what I did. And I don't know if anything I say now would have changed what happened when it did. Disappointed in myself, but I'm also, I can't keep flogging myself.

I just have to move on. The past is in the past. You know, things are starting now. I just have to look to the future and hopefully peace out. I'm going to make a living and help support my family. The stay-at-home dad thing is fine, but I've got to, we can't survive on that forever, so I've got to do something. And my wife has been incredibly supportive, letting me run these crazy miles and seeing it's my passion. But I don't know. I mean, it's not, you can't,

something has to fall into place where I can, it's up to me to figure out what I need to do. And I keep, I guess, hoping something falls in my lap. My unsolicited opinion on it is, I don't know. I mean, I think that we're here on earth to grow. We're here to have experiences, to learn from them, and to grow from them. And to the extent that you can take what has happened to you and find a way to translate that into your own personal growth and then use that to be of service to other people, the more that you can get out of yourself and your predicament and try to be of counsel or be of service

through large actions and small to your kids, to your wife, to your community, potentially to the investment community. In whatever way you can identify, the more that you are in that place, truly in that place of just here to serve, then the details of how you're going to make a living and what happens next, I think will sort themselves out.

Right. I mean, I agree. I've, I agree. I'm reading Jab, Jab. Oh, Gary Vaynerchuk book. Yeah, so I've got to start jabbing. Right. Yeah, it's along the same line of thinking I have right now. I just have to piece that together. Other than your wife and your priest, are you able to talk to anyone else to help you process through all of this?

I haven't talked to anybody else. I thought about life coaches and that type of thing, but I don't know if that's kind of skeptical of that. Maybe I could be a life coach. My wife could put together a pretty good syllabus for you. Rather than reading Gary Vee, let's get you on some spiritual texts and help you really sort of emotionally and spiritually navigate this.

Because I think that you can come out the other side of this. And my hope for you and my expectation for you is that you can get to a place where you truly, at your core, can look back on this and be grateful that it happened for you, for yourself, for your kids, and for your family. That'd be great. I want to be there, too. And I'm not there yet, but I hope to be. Maybe you can come back and tell me about it when you get there.

That'd be great. Yeah? Let's do it. Cool, man. Well, thanks for talking to me. Thanks, Rich. I wish you the best. Thank you.

And I appreciate you coming out today. No problem. Thanks for having me. All Thanks, Rich. I wish you the best. Thank you. And I appreciate you coming out today. No problem. Thanks for having me. All right, man. Peace. Plants. Okay, so that was amazing. I just want to thank Tom again for his willingness to be so open with me, so vulnerable, so raw, so honest. I really appreciate

that. I'm left a little bit speechless about the whole experience, but I'm just touched. And I hope that you got something positive out of it. I also wanted to let you know that next weekend, Tom is running his first 24-hour ultra marathon. So if you were at all touched by his story, I know that it would mean a lot to him if you gave him a shout out on Twitter. He's at I am tipper X, I am t i p p e r x. No doubt a high five sent his way would go a long way towards putting some wind in his sails. And let me know what you thought of the episode in the comments section on the episode page at richroll.com. Very interested in your feedback on this one. Our new cookbook and lifestyle guide, The Plant Power Way, is now out.

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