Ex-Commodities Trader Gets 3 Years in Prison for Hiding Losses

A fomer commodities trader in Houston was ordered to spend three years behind bars after admitting to hiding hundreds of millions of dollars in losses from his employer to secure a hefty bonus.

David Smothermon was sentenced Tuesday in New York by US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, more than seven years after he was initially charged by federal prosecutors with overriding entries in his company’s accounting systems to conceal heavy trading losses.

The case was one of several pursued by federal prosecutors in Manhattan centering around mismarking — the use of questionable accounting methods to make assets or positions ...