Seth MacFarlane on “Family Guy” movie: “it’s just a matter of when”

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane wants to bring his beloved and controversial Fox show to the big screen, telling students at UCLA on Wednesday that a theatrical version of the show will definitely happen.

“It’s just a matter of when,” MacFarlane said, according to Entertainment Weekly. “It’s hard to do that while you have the series going on at the same time; I think that’s why it took ‘The Simpsons’ 20 seasons to figure out how to do it.”

“Family Guy,” which is in its 11th season, has made MacFarlane one of the most successful writers in television. A writer, director, voice actor and animator – not to mention singer-of-standards and this year’s Oscar host – MacFarlane created that show, as well Fox shows “American Dad” and “The Cleveland Show.”

He also had been working on a reboot of “The Flintstones,” but that appears to be shelved for now.

MacFarlane then transformed into one of the film industry’s hottest commodities this summer thanks to the breakout success of “Ted,” the Universal comedy that has set a new box-office record for an original, R-rated comedy.

While Universal has every intent of making another “Ted,” MacFarlane said he also has developed the ideas for a “Family Guy” film.

“We do know what the ‘Family Guy’ movie will be,” he told the students. Drawing another comparison to “The Simpsons Movie,” he said his one criticism of the cinematic version of that iconic show was that the plot would have worked on TV.

He claimed his “Family Guy” idea “would be impossible to do on TV.”

The Hollywood Reporter wrote last year that there is a deal in place for a ‘Family Guy” movie, but MacFarlane’s representatives did not respond to a request for more information about the rights to the movie or MacFarlane’s plans.

While MacFarlane still spends a good deal of his time working on television projects, the prospect of a “Family Guy” movie raises two questions: Does he have to make “Ted” first? Does Fox have the rights to the movie?

Neither Universal nor Fox have returned requests for comment.

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Is diabetes linked to hearing loss?

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Diabetes has already been tied to an increased risk of kidney and cardiovascular troubles, nerve damage and vision loss, and now a new study finds diabetics to be more than twice as likely as those without the disease to have hearing impairment.

In a review of past research on the question, scientists in Japan also found that younger diabetics were at even higher risk than older adults – though they cannot explain why, and experts caution that this kind of study does not prove that diabetes is directly responsible for the greater hearing loss rates.

“It doesn’t definitively answer the question, but it continues to raise an important point that patients might ask about,” said Dr. Steven Smith, diabetes specialist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

It’s also not the first time researchers have found a link between diabetes and hearing loss.

In 2008, researchers from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) saw similar patterns in a sample of more than 11,000 people. In that study, people with diabetes were twice as likely to have hearing loss as those without the condition.

Generally, hearing loss is defined as having trouble understanding what people are saying in a hushed voice, and missing some words at a regular volume.

The American Diabetes Association estimates there are currently about 16 million people living in the U.S. with diabetes, and NIH says about 36 million Americans report some level of hearing loss.

It’s thought that high blood sugar levels brought on by diabetes may lead to hearing loss by damaging blood vessels in the ears, according to Chika Horikawa, the study’s lead author from Niigata University Faculty of Medicine in Japan, and colleagues.

They collected information from 13 previous studies examining the link between diabetes and hearing loss and published between 1977 and 2011. Together, the data covered 7,377 diabetics and 12,817 people without the condition.

Overall, Horikawa’s team found that diabetics were 2.15 times as likely as people without the disease to have hearing loss. But when the results were broken down by age, people under age 60 had 2.61 times the risk while people over 60 had 1.58 times higher risk.

The researchers, whose findings appear in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, note that future studies that take more factors into account, such as age and noisy environments, are needed to clarify the link between diabetes and hearing loss.

Still, Horikawa told Reuters Health in an email, people should recognize that diabetics may be at risk for hearing loss based on their results.

“Furthermore, these results propose that diabetic patients are screened for hearing impairment from (an) earlier age compared with non-diabetics,” said Horikawa, adding that hearing loss has also been linked to an increased risk of depression and dementia.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/RlVeeW Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, online November 12, 2012.

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Oliver Stone, Benicio del Toro visit Puerto Rico

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Benicio Del Toro didn’t wait long to collect on a favor that Oliver Stone owed him for working extra hours on the set of his most recent movie, “Savages”, released this year.

The favor? A trip to Del Toro‘s native Puerto Rico, which Stone hadn’t visited since the early 1960s.

“I told him, you owe me one,” Del Toro said with a smile as he recalled the conversation during a press conference Friday in the U.S. territory, where he and Stone are helping raise money for one of the island’s largest art museums.

Del Toro, wearing jeans, a black jacket and a black T-shirt emblazoned with the name of local reggaeton singer Tego Calderon, waved to the press as he was introduced.

“Hello, greetings. Is this a press conference?” he quipped as he and Stone awaited questions.

Both men praised each other’s work, saying they would like to work with each other again.

“I deeply admire him as an actor, the way he thinks, the way he expresses himself,” Stone said. “Of all the actors I’ve worked with, he’s the most interesting.”

Stone said Del Toro always delivers surprises while acting, even when it’s as something as subtle as certain gestures between dialogue.

“I think Benicio is the master of keeping you watching,” he said.

Stone said he enjoys meeting up with Del Toro off-set because he’s one of the few actors in Hollywood who can talk about something other than movies.

“He is very interested in the world around him,” Stone said, adding that the conversations sometimes center around politics and other topics.

Del Toro declined to answer when asked what he thought about Puerto Rico’s referendum earlier this month, which aimed to determine the future of the island’s political status. He said the results did not seem to point to a clear-cut outcome.

Del Toro then said he would like the island’s movie business to grow, especially in a way that would encourage learning.

“I’m talking about movies in an educational sense, as a way to discover other parts of the world,” he said. “Create a film class. You’ll see, kids won’t skip it.”

Del Toro also shared his thoughts on being a father after having a daughter with Kimberly Stewart in August 2011.

He said the girl is learning how to swim and is discovering the world around her.

“She has her own personality,” Del Toro said. “She’s not her mother. She’s not me.”

Both Del Toro and Stone are expected to remain in Puerto Rico through the weekend to raise money for the Art Museum of Puerto Rico, which is hosting its annual movie festival and will honor Stone’s movies.

Museum curator Juan Carlos Lopez Quintero said the money raised will be used to enhance the museum’s permanent collection, especially with Puerto Rican paintings from the 19th century and early 20th century.

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Zynga shares slide after privileged status with Facebook ends

(Reuters) – Shares of gaming company Zynga Inc fell as much as 10 percent, a day after the “Farmville” creator reached an agreement with Facebook Inc that reduces its dependence on the social networking giant.

The companies reported in regulatory filings on Thursday that they have reached an agreement to amend a 2010 deal that was widely seen as giving Zynga privileged status on the world’s No.1 social network.

Zynga gets a freer hand to operate a standalone gaming website, but gives up its ability to promote its site on Facebook and to draw from the thriving social network of about 1 billion users.

“Although Zynga investors have reacted negatively to Thursday’s announcements so far, we view them as a long-term positive for both companies,” Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter said in a note to clients.

“Zynga now has an advantage to offer more payment options which could result in additional subscribers who are not Facebook users,” he said, maintaining his “outperform” rating and price target of $ 4 on the stock.

Both internet companies have been trying to reduce their interdependence, with Zynga starting up its own Zynga.com platform, and Facebook wooing other games developers.

In recent quarters, fees from Zynga contributed 15 percent of Facebook’s revenue, while Zynga relies on Facebook for roughly 80 percent of its revenue.

Francisco-based Zynga’s shares were down 7 percent at $ 2.44 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday.

Facebook shares were down more than 1 percent at $ 26.98.

(Reporting By Aurindom Mukherjee in Bangalore; Editing by Don Sebastian)

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Dolly Parton talks dreams, love, plastic surgery

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Although Dolly Parton has cemented her place in country and popular music, pop culture, and as an entrepreneur and philanthropist, she still, on occasion, gets nervous.

Her new book, “Dream More: Celebrate the Dreamer in You” encourages readers to overcome their fears, believe in their passions and keep taking risks.

The “I Will Always Love You” singer/songwriter, 66, who has written more than 3,000 songs and sold more than 100 million records, talked to Reuters about the message of the book, which was published this week.

Q. You say you put off writing this book?

A. “It’s just a simple little book. It’s not meant to save the world, or it’s not a complete book of how to be successful, but I think there is enough stuff in it for people to see kinda how I conduct my business and kinda what my thoughts are. And the good part is that all the money, if it sells good, goes to Imagination Library.”

Q. Right – your nonprofit quest to get kids to read?

A. “It’s one of the reasons I wanted to write this too, because I usually do concerts every year, for the foundation to make money to afford a lot of books, but I am not on tour now.”

Q. Talk about your 2009 commencement address at the University of Tennessee. Were you nervous?

A. “Well, yes, when I am out of my element doing things. I am not that educated and I didn’t go that far in school and I thought, ‘What am I going to say to these educated people, not just these kids who have just graduated college and are probably brilliant, but all these professionals and all these teachers?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, I am not smart enough’, but I thought, ‘Well, at least I am a hometown girl. At least they can see that in America, you can start from humble beginnings, that everybody can make it.”

Q. Which is one of the book’s messages, overcoming fears?

A. “Any time I am in a situation where I am just not comfortable, I am uneasy, but that doesn’t mean I won’t go on with it, just like the speech. And that I won’t be good at it, but there are just some things I would prefer not to do!”

Q. Success doesn’t equal happiness, yet you seem so hopeful and modest?

A. “I am always hopeful as a person, I have been since I was little…I really want things to be good. As I mention in the book, I wake up everyday expecting it to be good, and if it is not, then I try to set about changing it before I go to sleep at night.”

Q. Would you describe yourself as religious or spiritual?

A. “Just spiritual, I am not religious. Although I grew up in a very religious family, but…I am no fanatic by any stretch of the word, and I am no angel, believe me. I wrote a song called ‘The Seeker’ many, many years ago, and it says ‘I am a seeker, just a poor sinful creature, there is no one weaker than I am.’

“People say, ‘What do you regret?’ I say, ‘I can’t say that I regret anything because at the time I was doing it, whatever it was, it seemed to be the thing to be doing at the time.’

“I have a good friend base, I have a good husband. So I have a lot of things and people who help me and guide me. I have never had to go to a psychiatrist, but I would if I thought that I needed to.

Q. But we are in New York, Dolly! No psychiatrist?

A. “Well yes (laughs), I guess not. But I do that in my songs, I write my feelings out and then I have such a strong faith and then I have such good friends. I am very close to several of my sisters, and we just talk about everything and anything….And my best friend Judy, there is nothing I can’t tell her, even if it is the awful-est thing in the world.”

Q. You recently had to deny gay rumors. Who is your greatest love?

“My husband is my greatest love, I have been with him 48 years…He is my best buddy.”

Q. Why do you think people always wonder about him?

A. “They don’t think he really exists! When I was doing my show, we were thinking about having a different guy knock on the door every night, as my husband, and then one night he would be a midget, and one night he would be a black man, and one night he would be like a boxer or a wrestler, all these different things that people imagine what my husband looks like.”

Q. You say that looking so artificial works for you, as it lets you prove how real you are. Why all the plastic surgery?

A. “Because I need it. Why does anybody get it?”

Q. Why do you think you need it?

A. “Because I am in show business. I am not a natural beauty. And I am on camera all the time. And I just always see, like if I need – Oh take one of my chins off, at least! – Or whatever. I mean, I don’t go to extremes with it. I just do little bits and pieces, just to try and keep things touched up, just tweaking.”

(Reporting by Christine Kearney, editing by Jill Serjeant and Carol Bishopric)

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Gilda’s Club name change insult to late comedian?

MIDDLETON, Wis. (AP) — Remember Roseanne Roseannadana? Or Emily Litella? Or Baba Wawa?

Younger generations might not recognize the characters popularized by comedian Gilda Radner. Nor might they remember Radner herself, an original cast member of “Saturday Night Live” who died 23 years ago and for whom a national cancer support group is named.

That’s troubling to the Madison-area chapter of Gilda’s Club, which decided to change its name in part because of concern that many don’t know who Radner was. But the move prompted outrage from some Radner fans — who saw it as a slight to a woman who confronted cancer with dignity and humor — and led other chapters across the nation to hastily reaffirm they have absolutely no intention of changing their names.

Lannia Syren Stenz, the Madison-area club’s executive director, said her organization decided to change its name to Cancer Support Community Southwest Wisconsin after it realized that most college students were born after Radner died in 1989.

“We are seeing younger and younger adults who are dealing with a cancer diagnosis,” Stenz told the Wisconsin State Journal. “We want to make sure that what we are is clear to them and that there’s not a lot of confusion that would cause people not to come in our doors.”

Her comments angered some Radner fans, who let loose a storm of criticism on the organization’s Facebook page.

“The only educating you’re doing is teaching kids that when they die from cancer, their name will be erased from history in 20 years because the next generation doesn’t know who they are. Way to give them hope!” wrote Mark Warneke, 44, a full-time college student in Arlington, Texas.

He told The Associated Press that taking Radner’s name off the foundation was an insult to her memory.

Stenz referred questions from the AP to Linda House, executive vice president of the national group. House said there was no evidence that young people are unfamiliar with Radner and the name change was motivated by the desire to make the organization’s mission clear. She called Stenz’s comments “not accurate, period.”

“Gilda Radner is very much a part of the fiber of this organization,” House said. “There has never been an intent and there is no intent to lose Gilda as part of the organization.”

Stenz’s club held a ceremony Thursday to mark the name change, which will be phased it over the next month.

Radner, who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1986, sought support from The Wellness Community in California and wrote about her experience in her book “It’s Always Something,” a reference to one of her characters’ catch-phrases.

Her friends and family started Gilda’s Club in 1991 on the East Coast to honor her legacy. The name was inspired by something Radner said after her diagnosis: “Having cancer gave me membership in an elite club I’d rather not belong to.”

Gilda’s Club Worldwide merged with The Wellness Community in 2009, and the joint headquarters in Washington changed its name to the Cancer Support Community. Local chapters were given the choice of keeping their names or switching to Cancer Support Community, House said.

The 56 chapters around the world deliver $ 40 million a year in free care to about 1 million cancer patients and their families, she said. Of those chapters, 20 are known as Gilda’s Club, three are Wellness Community and 23 are Cancer Support Community.

Changing the chapters’ names made sense to Ron Nief, a professor at Beloit College in southern Wisconsin who has made a career out of studying how different generations view the world differently. He said it could become harder for Gilda’s Club to attract donations as fewer people remember seeing Radner on TV.

“I think we all want to keep our traditions alive,” he said, “but there comes a reality in this case of what does this group represent and how do we raise money for it.”

Radner’s husband, actor Gene Wilder, said he didn’t like the name change but he understood it. He said if he had to break the news to his late wife she might ask, “Do they have to throw me out?”

“I’d say, ‘It’s not throwing you out, honey, it’s getting more money.’ And she’d say, ‘OK, I guess if they have to, they have to,’” he said. “It’s too bad. I wish it weren’t so. But I understand.”

The Wellness Center where Radner once sought support in Los Angeles was one of the groups that updated its name. Julia Forth, the marketing director of what’s now called the Cancer Support Community Benjamin Center, said people who get sick Google the word cancer, so it helps to have that word in the name.

Other organizations were adamant about keeping the Gilda’s Club name. LauraJane Hyde, who runs the Chicago chapter, said her group has spent 15 years teaching people that Radner’s name was synonymous with cancer support, in the same way people know what Starbucks sells even though “coffee” isn’t in its name.

“A lot of people feel very passionately about the name,” she said. “We will lose donations if we change it.”

Radner remains a strong presence at the Madison-area club even without her name on the building in the suburb of Middleton. Paintings and drawings of Radner line the walls. One depicts her on top of Madison’s state Capitol. Another imagines her sitting along the shores of Lake Mendota on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.

The meeting rooms are named after her Saturday Night Live characters, including New York-street smart reporter Roseanne Roseannadana, out-of-sync editorialist Emily Litella and speech-impeded talk show host Baba Wawa, a parody of Barbara Walters.

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Ramde reported from Milwaukee and can be reached at dramde(at)ap.org. Associated Press researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed to this report from New York. Follow Scott Bauer on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sbauerAP.

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Noisy city: Cacophony in Caracas sparks complaints

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — This metropolis of 6 million people may be one of the world’s most intense, overwhelming cities, with tremendous levels of crime, traffic and social strife. The sounds of Caracas‘ streets live up to its reputation.

Stand on any downtown corner, and the cacophony can be overpowering: Deafening horns blast from oncoming buses, traffic police shrilly blow their whistles and sirens shriek atop ambulances stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Air horns routinely used by bus drivers are so powerful they make pedestrians on crosswalks recoil, and can even leave their ears ringing. Loud salsa music blares from the windows of buses, trucks with old mufflers rumble past belching exhaust, and “moto-taxis” weave through traffic beeping high-pitched horns.

Growing numbers of Venezuelans are saying they’re fed up with the noise that they say is getting worse, and the numbers of complaints to the authorities have risen in recent years.

One affluent district, Chacao, put up signs along a main avenue reading: “A honk won’t make the traffic light change.”

“The noise is terrible. Sometimes it seems like it’s never going to end,” said Jose Santander, a street vendor who stands in the middle of a highway selling fried pork rinds and potato chips to commuters in traffic.

Prosecutor General Luisa Ortega recently told a news conference that officials have started “putting an increased emphasis on promoting peaceful coexistence” by punishing misdemeanors such as violations of anti-noise regulations and other minor crimes. That effort has translated into hundreds of noise-related cases in recent years.

Some violators are ordered to perform community service. For instance, two young musicians who were recently caught playing loud music near a subway station were sentenced to 120 hours of community service giving music lessons to students in public schools.

Others caught playing loud music on the street have been charged with disturbing the peace after complaints from neighbors. Fines can run as high as 9,000 bolivars, or $ 2,093.

On the streets of their capital, however, Venezuelans have grown used to living loudly. The noisescape adds to a general sense of anarchy, with many drivers ignoring red lights and blocking intersections along potholed streets strewn with trash.

“This is something that everybody does. Nobody should be complaining,” said Gregorio Hernandez, a 23-year-old college student, as he listened to Latin rock songs booming from his car stereo on a Saturday night in downtown Caracas. “We’re just having fun. We’re not hurting anybody.”

Adding to the mess is the country’s notoriously divisive politics, which regularly fill the streets with marches and demonstrations.

On many days, the shouts of protesters streaming through downtown can be heard from blocks away, demanding pay hikes or unpaid benefits.

And the sporadic crackling of gunfire in the slums can be confused for firecrackers tossed by boisterous partygoers.

It’s difficult to rank the world’s noisiest cities because many, including Venezuela’s capital, don’t take measurements of sound pollution, said Victor Rastelli, a mechanical engineering professor and sound pollution expert at Simon Bolivar University in Caracas. But Rastelli said he suspects Caracas is right up there among the noisiest, along with Sao Paulo, Mexico City and Mumbai.

Excessive noise can be more than simply an annoyance, Rastelli said. “This is a public health problem.”

Dr. Carmen Mijares, an audiologist at a private Caracas hospital, said she treats at least a dozen patients every month for hearing damage caused by prolonged exposure to loud noises.

“Many of them work in bars or night clubs, and their maladies usually include temporary hearing loss and headaches,” Mijares said. For others, she said, the day-to-day noise of traffic, car horns and loud music can exacerbate stress and sleeping disorders.

Several cities have successfully reduced noise pollution, said Stephen Stansfeld, a London psychiatry professor and coordinator of the European Network on Noise and Health.

One of the most noteworthy initiatives, Stansfeld said, was in Copenhagen, Denmark, where officials used sound walls, noise-reducing asphalt and other infrastructure as well as public awareness campaigns to fight noise pollution.

But such high-tech solutions seem like a remote possibility in Caracas, where streets are literally falling apart and aging overpasses regularly lack portions of their guard rails. Prosecutors, angry neighbors and others hoping to fight the noise will have to persuade Venezuelans to do nothing less than change their loud behavior.

For Carlos Pinto, however, making noise is practically a political right.

The 26-year-old law student and his friends danced at a recent street party to house music booming from woofers in his car’s open trunk, with neon lights on the speakers that pulsed to the beat.

When asked about the noise, he answered: “We will be heard.”

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AP freelance video journalist Ricardo Nunes contributed to this report.

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Christopher Toothaker on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ctoothaker

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Taking a page from Louis C.K., Chill launches online store for films, comedy specials

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – Chill, a social video platform with close to 20 million users, has launched Chill Direct, a new store for creatives like Maria Bamford and Michael Urie to sell their movies, specials and documentaries directly to fans.

Comedian Louis C.K. sent shockwaves through the entertainment industry this summer by selling a comedy special directly online rather than making a distribution deal with a television network or online service. He made millions, and various others have followed suit, including Jim Gaffigan and Aziz Ansari.

Chill sees an opportunity to enter this emerging market, empowering artists and offering them an opportunity to control the distribution and monetization of their ongoing projects.

“The community gives filmmakers and comedians the ability to distribute premium video directly to fans,” CEO Brian Norgard told TheWrap. “The common analogy is to Louis C.K. and his ‘Live at Beacon Theater.‘ That was a seminal moment in the entertainment business and a lot of things now allow direct-to-fan to become a viable model.”

Artists who choose to sell through Chill also can sell their videos elsewhere, but Chill Direct launches with eight videos exclusive to the site. That slate includes “Maria Bamford: the Special Special Special!,” an hour-long comedy special starring Bamford, “Thank You For Judging,” a documentary from “Ugly Betty” actor Urie about high school speech and debate and “Unknown Sender,” a suspense series from “48 Hrs” and “Die Hard” scribe Stephen E. de Souza.

Starting Thursday, any artist can create a page for a project and has complete creative control over the page, from information about the project to trailers to pricing. Meanwhile, Chill handles distribution across devices as well as payments.

Artists retain rights to their own intellectual property while Chill takes a 30 percent cut of any transaction.

“What Chill does is let anyone build out socially integrated marketing pages – we call them story pages – beautiful, high-resolution tantalizing receptacles of premium videos,” Norgard said.

Chill, funded by WME and Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers and others, has previously enabled frictionless uploading, consumption and sharing of the web’s most popular videos. This maintains a social layer, allowing for commenting and offering bundles that combine the video with other perks like merchandise or meeting the creator.

“The land of premium video is still a very closed marketplace,” Norgard said. “If you have tremendous business development skills or connections to sell a film to Netflix or Hulu, you’re lucky. The ad-supported model doesn’t fit every type of content. There is plenty of stuff out there like documentary films and comedy specials where creators are between a rock and a hard place and wan to get it out there, distribute it, own the right but not put it on a free streaming site like YouTube.”

Selling direct to fans also offers a new revenue stream to a company that until now was mostly luring people a few times a day for videos.

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Adkins explains Confederate flag earpiece

NEW YORK (AP) — Trace Adkins wore an earpiece decorated like the Confederate flag when he performed for the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting but says he meant no offense by it.

Adkins appeared with the earpiece on a nationally televised special for the lighting on Wednesday. Some regard the flag as a racist symbol and criticized Adkins in Twitter postings.

But in a statement released Thursday, the Louisiana native called himself a proud American who objects to any oppression and says the flag represents his Southern heritage.

He noted he’s a descendant of Confederate soldiers and says he did not intend offense by wearing it.

Adkins — on a USO tour in Japan — also called for the preservation of America’s battlefields and an “honest conversation about the country’s history.”

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Online:

http://www.traceadkins.com

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Former baseball star Doug DeCinces indicted for insider trading

(Reuters) – Former Baltimore Orioles third baseman Doug DeCinces has been indicted by a federal grand jury for insider trading, the Justice Department said on Wednesday.

DeCinces was charged with 42 counts of criminal securities fraud and one count of money laundering over the 2008 purchase of stock in a medical device company based on insider information, according to an indictment filed in a federal court in Southern California.

DeCinces, 62, bought $ 160,000 worth of stock in Advanced Medical Optics Inc, after a “close personal friend” alerted him to an impending takeover bid by Abbott Laboratories, according to prosecutors.

He sold his stock shortly after the takeover bid was announced, making $ 1.3 million in profits, the department said.

A lawyer for DeCinces did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The criminal charges came on the heels of civil charges filed against DeCinces in August 2011 by the Securities and Exchange Commission related to the same accusations.

DeCinces settled those charges with the SEC, agreeing to pay $ 2.5 million in fines, while neither admitting nor denying wrongdoing in the trading of Advanced Medical Optics shares.

The indictment also names three friends of DeCinces to whom he provided the insider information to make up for previous investment advice that “had gone bad,” according to prosecutors.

The others indicted are David Parker and Fred Scott Jackson, each charged with six counts of securities fraud. A third friend, Roger Wittenbach, faces four securities fraud charges. Parker also faces a money laundering charge.

The securities fraud charges carry a maximum sentence of 20 years imprisonment each, while the money laundering charges carry a 10-year maximum sentence for each count.

The four men charged are scheduled to appear in the U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, California, on December 17.

(Reporting by Mary Slosson; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Eric Walsh)

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