U.S. Army Master Sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke pleaded not guilty Tuesday to five federal charges over a series of Polymarket bets that turned $33,000 into more than $404,000, in what prosecutors describe as the first insider-trading case ever filed against a prediction-markets trader.
Key Takeaways:
Van Dyke pleads not guilty to five federal charges in Manhattan federal court Apr 28. Defense attorney Mark Geragos signals plan to challenge validity of the indictment. Kalshi had previously blocked Van Dyke under its ID requirements, per Reuters. The ‘Eddie Murphy’ Rule is Invoked By The CFTC In ProsecutionGarnett released Van Dyke on a $250,000 bond and set the next court date for June 8 for the pretrial conference. Travel has been restricted to portions of North Carolina, New York, and California, where Van Dyke has family.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has filed parallel civil charges, making the case a dual federal-criminal and federal-civil enforcement action against a single retail prediction-markets trader. The CFTC complaint marks the first time the agency has invoked the so-called “Eddie Murphy Rule” – a Commodity Exchange Act provision named after the 1983 film Trading Places, prohibiting government employees from using nonpublic government information in markets under CFTC jurisdiction.
A photograph allegedly tied to the operation – Van Dyke “on what appears to be the deck of a ship at sea, at sunrise, wearing U.S. military fatigues, and carrying a rifle” – was uploaded to his Google account after the raid.
