A list of Medifast insiders who sold stock in 2009.

By William Lobdell

In Medifast's federal lawsuit filed this week in San Diego against the Fraud Discovery Institute, Barry Minkow and several of his associates (including me), I was accused of writing "very specific and false statements that more than $6 million worth of shares were dumped by Medifast insiders in the two months prior to his report--a statement that is directly contradicted by publicly available SEC filings, sources that should have ben checked by an ex-reporter such as Lobdell."

I rechecked the filings, and in November and December 2009, Medifast insiders sold stock worth $6,147,447. And for all of 2009, Medifast insiders sold stock worth about $11.5 million. Two relatives of Chairman of the Board Bradley T. MacDonald dumped about $7.1 million worth of stock (see Yahoo Finance chart for complete list of Medifast insider transaction).

Shirley MacDonald, wife of the chairman, dumped $5.5 million worth of Medifast stock in 2009, including nearly $4 million worth of stock in December and November.

Margaret MacDonald Sheetz, Medifast's president and chief operating officer and daughter of the chairman, sold $1.6 milion worth of stock for 2009.

Also, Michael S. McDevitt, chief executive and chief financial officer of Medifast, cashed in nearly $2.9 million worth of stock for 2009.

By the way, I tightened up the time element in my reporting on Medifast here, but left the orginal copy for full transparency.