Gustavo Arnal, Bed Bath & Beyond’s chief financial officer who committed suicide Friday, was sued two weeks before his death in a $1.2 billion class-action lawsuit also naming majority shareholder, GameStop Chairman Ryan Cohen.

Arnal and Cohen, as well as J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, were accused of a pump-and-dump scheme to inflate the company’s stock, BBBY, Fox Business reports. Cohen first took out a 10% stake in Bed Bath & Beyond in March.

The 52-year-old Arnal plunged to his death from his 18^th floor apartment in New York’s downtown SoHo.

Arnal sold 42,513 shares of Bed Bath & Beyond stock on Aug. 16 for more than $1,029,000, with 267,896 shares worth nearly $6.5 million still in his possession at the time, according to MarketBeat.com.

Cohen purchased more than 1.6 million BBBY shares with a strike price of between $60 and $80, according to the lawsuit.

BBBY climbed from $4.38 per share on July 1, 2022 to $30 per share on Aug. 17, 2022. At Friday’s close, the stock was valued at $8.63 a share.

The lawsuit charges Cohen of approaching Arnal with his idea of manipulating the stock:

“With control over a significant portion of the public float, Cohen would essentially act as a price support for the stock, while Gustavo would act in a similar capacity by controlling the sale of shares by Insiders. Under this arrangement, defendants would profit handsomely from the rise in price and could coordinate their selling of shares to optimize their returns.

This was “a classic attempt to spark a gamma squeeze, in exchange for Gustavo’s assurance that Insiders would not flood … the market with the stock,” the lawsuit continues. A gamma squeeze is an upward spiral in a stock price caused by a run on short-dated call options.

Arnal lept to his death around 12:20 a.m. Friday, without leaving a suicide note, the New York Post reports, citing law enforcement sources. His wife was reportedly in the apartment at the time.

Two days before his death, Bed Bath & Beyond announced that it would lay off 20% of its 32,000 workers and close 150 stores.

Arnal joined Bed Bath & Beyond in 2020 after a two-year stint in London for cosmetics company Avon and 20 years with Procter & Gamble.

The housewares company issued a statement Sunday saying, “The entire Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. organization is profoundly saddened by this shocking loss.”

Harriet Edelman, chairman of the company’s board of directors, added in the release: “Gustavo will be remembered by all he worked with for his leadership, talent and stewardship of our Company.”