Illustration: Johanna Burai for Bloomberg Businessweek
Finance
Insider Trading’s Odd Couple: The Goldman Banker and the NFL Linebacker
Damilare Sonoiki and Mychal Kendricks looked like they had it all. They made a bad team.
When Mychal Kendricks darted past the Chicago Bears line earlier this month and sacked their quarterback, the Seattle Seahawks linebacker crawled across the turf, smacked it, leaped into the air, and twirled. Mics for the Monday Night Football game picked up a stretched-out scream of joy.
Two days later, in a Philadelphia courtroom 750 miles away, Damilare Sonoiki, a former Goldman Sachs banker, faced a judge and admitted he had leaked secrets about impending deals to the linebacker. The judge asked the 27-year-old why he was pleading guilty. “Because I guess I’m guilty,” he answered.