In December 1999 she was charged for insider trading by using bank merger information given by a former lover James McDermott, an investment banker, former chairman and CEO of the firm Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, and for sharing that information with another lover, New Jersey businessman Anthony Pomponio. Prosecutors stated Star used the tips to make $88,135 in the stock market from May 1997 through the summer of 1998, and Pomponio made a comparable amount.[3]
Star escaped arrest by fleeing to Vancouver, Canada, where she married stockbroker Michael Gilley in the spring of 2000 (taking his last name). She was arrested May 24, 2000, and eventually extradited to the United States.[4] Gilley filed for divorce October 13, 2000 after being charged with domestic violence.
Star pled guilty to insider trading charges on June 11, 2002, and was sentenced to three months in Women's Correctional Center, Danbury, Connecticut, which she began serving December 2, 2002. Her comments on that matter were that she got into trouble because she was a naïve young woman who dated an older man.