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Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Indicted on Conspiracy, Obstruction, and Perjury Charges Related to Trial Conduct
Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Convertino was indicted on conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and perjury charges related to his conduct as lead trial counsel in the so-called "Detroit Terrorism Trial" in which two defendants were convicted on terrorism charges only to have the government request that the verdicts be thrown out because the theory of…
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Austria Wants Former Refco CEO Bennett
Former Refco Inc. CEO Phillip Bennett is under house arrest in New York awaiting trial on securities fraud charges related to false accounting at the commodities and securities broker that collapsed in a little more than a week in October 2005. The source of the company’s problems was that its books carried $430 million in…
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Abramoff Receives 70 Month Sentence
Jack Abramoff received good news at his sentencing — to the extent there can be good news related to going to prison — when U.S. District Judge Paul Huck accepted the defense argument and gave him a 70 month term of imprisonment, which was at the bottom of the agreed to sentencing range. Abramoff will…
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Now It’s a Criminal Investigation of GM
As noted in an earlier post (here), GM had to delay the filing of its annual 10-K due to accounting problems that cropped up at its ResCap residential mortgage division. The company filed the report on March 28, and it includes the disclosure that an investigation of its accounting for certain supplier credits and rebates…
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Insider Trading Ban for Capitol Hill
An article in the Wall Street Journal (here) discusses proposed legislation that would make it illegal for members of Congress and their staff to trade on nonpublic information related to legislative action that affects the price of a stock. The legislation is not yet available, and the article notes that it covers more than just…
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Abramoff Sentencing: Round One
Former superlobbyist Jack Abramoff will receive his first criminal sentence under his plea agreement on bank fraud charges in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Abramoff and co-defendant Adam Kidan pled guilty to charges related to their purchase of SunCruz Casinos in 2000 in which they lied to banks in connection with…
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SEC Files Insider Trading Charges Against Pharmaceutical Company Executive for Selling Before Bad News
The SEC filed insider trading charges against Alexander Yaroshinsky, a vice president of Connetics Corp., for trading in the company’s securities upon learning about the FDA’s preliminary negative reaction to cancer studies of an acne drug being tested. The Commission’s Litigation Release (here) states: [Yaroshinsky] learned the FDA’s preliminary views with respect to the cancer…
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Government Rests Its Case Against Lay and Skilling, and Asks for Four Counts to Be Dismissed
The government ended its case-in-chief against former Enron CEOs Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling after calling its final witness, Joanne Cortez, a former Enron employee who testified about how Lay used his line of credit from the company. After resting, the government requested that the court dismiss three of the securities fraud charges against Skilling…
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Cutting Off Attorney’s Fees to Former Corporate Executives
The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article (here) on instances in which corporations have terminated payment of the attorney’s fees of executives who are being prosecuted for conduct at the company. One reason for stopping the payments identified in the article is pressure from the Department of Justice on companies that have entered into…
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Two Jurors Dropped From Ryan Jury
The RICO corruption trial of former Illinois Governor George Ryan and a co-defendant remained on hold as U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer dismissed two jurors because they failed to disclose criminal convictions on their juror questionnaire. The judge said she would meet with the jury to determine whether to seat two alternates and have them…
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