Overview
- Leech pleaded guilty on Friday, June 12, 2026, admitting he gave false sworn testimony to SEC investigators about his trade-allocation practices.
- The guilty plea to an obstruction charge came days before a scheduled June 15 fraud trial and led prosecutors to drop the higher fraud counts that had been filed against him.
- Western Asset Management agreed on June 5 to pay a $100 million civil penalty to the SEC without admitting wrongdoing, and the Department of Justice declined to bring criminal charges against the firm.
- Regulators say the alleged scheme ran from January 2021 through October 2023 and involved 'cherry-picking'—assigning completed trades after seeing intraday performance so more than $600 million in gains flowed to favored 'Macro Opportunities' accounts while losses landed in 'Core' and 'Core Plus' accounts.
- Sentencing for Leech is pending and the plea is likely to boost civil claims by harmed clients and prompt closer regulatory and industry scrutiny of how managers allocate trades, even though the firm’s fine is a small share of its roughly $229 billion in assets under management.