Ex-Presstek CEO agrees to deal on SEC charges

Former Presstek CEO Edward J. Marino has agreed to pay a $50,000 fine to settle charges that he leaked inside information about his former company’s poor quarterly performance to an investment adviser who within minutes forwarded a message to dump the stock, the Securities and Exchange Commission disclosed Tuesday.Marino, while not admitting or denying the allegation, agreed to an SEC administrative order that finds he did cause Presstek to violate securities law and to cease and desist from doing so in the future.The incident occurred in the fall of 2006, the SEC said. Presstek shares fell by almost 20 percent the day the information was revealed, according to the agency.The settlement must be approved by a U.S. District Court judge in Boston.Marino, who lives in Cambridge, Mass., is currently CEO of LW Robbins, a Holliston, Mass.-based fund-raising agency exclusively devoted to nonprofits. Messages left for Marino at the agency were not returned by deadline.Presstek paid the SEC $400,000 in March 2010 to settle the same allegations on a civil complaint against both Presstek and Marino, but at that time the charges against the former CEO were still pending.Marino headed Presstek from 2002 to 2007, when the printing equipment company was headquartered in Hudson, N.H.. The company moved to Greenwich, Conn., after Presstek “terminated” him in May 2007, in the words of the SEC complaint. Marino was succeed by Jeff Jacobson, who left in February to be replaced by Stanley E. Freimuth.Neither of the subsequent executives had anything to do with the SEC charges.The news of the settlement came the same day the company filed a report with the SEC showing a $1.2 million loss for the last quarter. — BOB SANDERS/NEW HAMPSHIRE BUSINESS REVIEW