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File this under ‘What was he thinking?’ After spending nearly 17 years as controller at Aceto, a supplier of active pharmaceutical ingredients, Ed Kelly retired in March 2018 and, one month

later, was hired as a consultant to help the company close its books for the recently ended fiscal quarter. But then he came across information that he apparently could not ignore — and

committed insider trading by acting on it, according to a complaint filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Kelly, 63, discovered that Aceto experienced poor sales and earnings, and

was about to take a hefty impairment charge, which refers to diminished value in an asset. So he sold all of his Aceto stock and also exercised and sold his in-the-money stock options. In

doing so, he avoided more than $85,000 losses. The only problem was that the company’s poor performance was not yet publicly known. STAT+ Exclusive Story Already have an account? Log in THIS

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