Banksters or ballplayers

While the people who brought you the Economic Apocalypse of 2008 still run free, I'm glad the SEC has decided to go after the real offenders.

Mr. Murray, who was among the 10 highest paid players in the National League in 1991, when he signed a two-year deal with the New York Mets for $7.5 million, made about $235,000 in illegal gains by buying shares of Advanced Medical Optics ahead of the deal and then selling his stake after it was announced, the S.E.C. said. Mr. Murray agreed to settle the case by paying $358,000 in disgorged profits and penalties without admitting or denying the charges.

“It is truly disappointing when role models, particularly those who have achieved so much in their professional careers, give in to the temptation of easy money,” said Daniel M. Hawke, a senior S.E.C. enforcement lawyer.

Michael J. Proctor, a lawyer for Mr. Murray, said that his client “is an honorable and ethical man who is settling this to put the matter to rest and move on with life.”

The charges against Mr. Murray come a day after federal regulators charged another sports figure, the former University of Georgia football coach Jim Donnan, with running a Ponzi scheme that defrauded fellow coaches and his former players.

The latest cases add to the spate of lawsuits brought by the commission against athletes. Last December, the former Chicago Bears receiver Willie Gault was accused of artificially inflating the stock of a company he helped run. He has denied the claim.

Eddie Murray, Hall of Famer and, in the view of the SEC, a destroyer of capitalism.