Not only did Krystal Ball win the Democratic nomination for Congress in the 1st District in 2010, it also appears that from September 2009 to now she’s become a millionaire!
Ball, who owned stock in K-12 Inc. – a company she worked for, exercised her stock options.
Jim Riley of Virginia Virtucon looked into Ball’s finances when he noticed the self-described “27-year-old woman from a family with a sub-$100,000 net worth” loaned her campaign $150K. He asked a series of questions surrounding Ball’s new-found wealth:
- What is the true value of Krystal Ball’s penny stock portfolio and did she accurately report it to the Clerk of the House on her financial disclosure form?
- Are Firefish, Papa Bello and/or Crowdgather involved in any “pump and dump” activity or are they legitimate small start-up companies who only unfortunately resemble Greenstone?
- If the former, to what extent, if any, is Ball involved in such possible activity (she is the CFO of the second largest investor in Firefish) or is she the victim of a possible stock scam?
- Given Ball’s total investments in Bank of America, Newell Rubbermaid, Sprint and Starbucks range between $4K and $60K, yet she has loaned her campaign over $227,000, is she funding her campaign by selling some of her Firefish, Papa Bello and/or Crowdgather stock? (Whenever she gets around to filing her next financial disclosure form, we should have a better idea as to this.)
- If Ball’s penny stock investments are being driven by pumps, is she then participating in well-timed dumps to raise money to fund her congressional campaign?
Of course, the campaign denies that it’s the start-ups making her money – just the options she exercised with K-12 Inc.
The Virginia Gazette wrote:
Ball’s most recent financial disclosure, which the campaign provided to the Gazette although it will not be made public for another 30 days, shows those options as currently worth between $1 million and $5 million.
That’s quite a change in circumstance for the “young wife and mother” who began running for Congress a year ago.
Quite a change indeed.
Is Ball helping fund her campaign with penny stock investments (potential huge swings in value) in companies she’s personally involved (read: inside information) that the Gazette says “seem to exist more on paper and in cyberspace than in reality” or just making good on exercising stock options?
The campaign certainly denies it, but if you’re making millions off of exercising stock options in a company you work for, and then turn right around and loan your campaign big bucks, it certainly looks suspicious.
Virginia Virtucon has even more details.
