National Lampoon CEO David S. Laikin was charged with conspiracy and securities fraud on Monday after allegedly attempting to raise the company’s stock value artificially, the New York Times reports. Laikin and five others were arrested Monday and indicted by a Philadelphia grand jury, the newspaper says. Laikin is accused of offering kickbacks to a stock promoter in exchange for raising the stock value of the company, a plot that a U.S. attorney said was “designed to corrupt the market and reap large profits for these defendants at the expense of the average investor,” the NYT says.
—Sergio Ibarra