At a guess he took a gamble, he made 3 million in salary in 2000, so the amount he sold was not trivial, even for him, he may have thought the government would not attempt to prosecute him, he may have thought if it came to trial the court would throw it out under the circumstances, he probably made a cost benefit analysis and acted upon it and ended up on the wrong side.
That's life.
EDIT: Interesting that this is downvoted, are you taking it as an indication that I'm attempting to say he got what he deserved with the above? That is not my intention, I'm simply pointing out that when you fight a bully, you often get a broken nose.