Paul Brinkmann: Local companies feel market drop.

Companies with a big Orlando presence were buffeted by Friday’s near 665.7-point drop in the market, the worst day on Wall Street in two years. But the biggest companies with local ties managed to escape the worst of the damage. Disney stock dropped by 1.62 percent, compared with the Dow Jones index drop of 2.54 percent.

Comcast, Universal’s owner, saw a drop of 1.86 percent, while SeaWorld dropped by just .53 percent.

Darden Restaurants, the only Orlando-headquartered Fortune 500 company, dropped by 1.62 percent.

Most financial media and stock market observers attributed the selloff to anticipation that investors will find bonds more attractive as interest rates rise. The drop also happened on a chaotic day for the nation’s political scene, with the release of a House GOP committee memo regarding controversial inner workings of the FBI’s investigation about Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The stock market has been on a bull run since March 2009, the second longest in history.

Local defense contractors also escaped the worst. Lockheed Martin, which employs at least 7,000 in the Orlando area, saw its stock fall only 1.32 percent, while Palm Baybased Harris Corp. slipped by just 1.13 percent.

AMD, which has a tech office in East Orlando, saw the biggest drop in companies with Central Florida ties. It went down by 6 percent. Its stock value has been volatile in recent years as changes roil the microprocessor industry.

Among other big drops locally: Kissimmee-based Tupperware, a company with a lot of international business, took a hit of 3.84 percent, while Voxx dropped by 4.35 percent.

Attorney imprisoned

A federal judge sentenced Orlando attorney William B. Pringle III on Thursday to three years in prison for decades of tax evasion, noting that he was well-versed in tax law. U.S. District Judge Roy Dalton handed down the sentence as Pringle’s family and friends looked on at the federal courthouse in downtown Orlando.

Pringle also got two years of probation and was ordered to pay restitution of $1.6 million — the amount of tax that the IRS and federal prosecutors said Pringle avoided paying by illegal means, starting in 1996.

Pringle pleaded with Dalton for probation only, without prison time, saying he had a lot to live for and would work hard to pay the IRS back. Pringle’s defense attorney, A. Brian Phillips, said Pringle was a “radically changed” man following his indictment.

But the judge said the fact that Pringle used his expertise as an attorney to evade the IRS was an aggravating factor.

Pringle was known for representing the late boy-band mogul Lou Pearlman in multiple lawsuits. Pearlman was notorious for his $300 million Ponzi scheme and for managing the Backstreet Boys and ’N Sync to stardom.