Daniel Ruettiger, the persistent young man who, despite his small stature, made his way onto the Notre Dame football team in the 1970s—an event that eventually inspired the movie “Rudy”—has found himself in trouble with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
On Friday, the commission charged Ruettiger and 12 others with running a scam associated with Rudy Nutrition, an energy drink company Ruettiger founded to compete with Gatorade. According to the SEC, the company was a pump-and-dump stock scam that only sold modest amounts of its product but created $11 million in illicit profits.
The commission says the company, which is now out of business, provided false and misleading statements to investors—including a claim the product outsold Gatorade two to one in a U.S. Southwest test.
"Investors were lured into the scheme by Mr. Ruettiger's well-known, feel-good story but found themselves in a situation that did not have a happy ending," Scott Friestad, an SEC enforcement lawyer, said in a statement.
Without admitting any wrongdoing, Ruettiger agreed to pay $382,866 to settle the case. Read more about this story.
