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Former HealthSouth CFO Receives Five Year Sentence — Did He Tell the Truth?
The fifth and last former HealthSouth CFO who entered a guilty plea, William Owens, received the longest sentence by far of any executive when U.S. District Judge Sharon Blackburn imposed a five-year prison term. The other former CFOs received sentences that ranged from probation to three months, including one who was resentenced to a week…
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The Nuclear Option for Healthcare Fraud
The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Health and Human Services has proposed what is, in effect, the nuclear option by issuing a notice that it will seek to bar a hospital from participating in all federal health care programs, most importantly medicare and medicaid. Such an exclusion would effectively put…
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Attorney Convicted of Money Laundering
Georgia attorney R. Scott Cunningham was convicted of two counts of money laundering related to use of his client trust account to transfer funds from a client’s advanced-fee loan scheme. While the jury acquitted Cunningham on 39 other money laundering charges, that is hardly anything to be proud of, and the conviction (which also includes…
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Abramoff Co-Defendant to Plead Guilty
Adam Kidan, who was indicted along with lobbyist Jack Abramoff on conspiracy and fraud charges related to a $147 million loan to purchase a casino ship company, is scheduled for a change of plea hearing on Dec. 15 in Miami. If Kidan cooperates with the government’s investigation, which appears very likely, then the pressure on…
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A Step Down for “Duke” Cunningham
An article in the San Diego Union-Tribune (here) discusses how former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham’s life will change when he is sentenced on Feb. 27 after pleading guilty to accepting bribes from two defense contractors. Cunningham may receive a substantial term of imprisonment because he admitted to accepting approximately $2.4 million in bribes, although his…
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Mistrial Declared in Fraud Trial of Duke Energy Trader
The trial of former Duke Energy trader Timothy Kramer ended with a hung jury on the 12 remaining charges of fraud related to the alleged submission of inflated prices for power and gas trades by the company in 2001 and 2002. Earlier, Kramer and fellow trader Todd Reid were acquitted of charges, with the jury…
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Which Time Were You Lying?
A Houston Chronicle story (here) discusses two affidavits signed by former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow asserting that he and his wife properly accounted on their taxes for payments received from Michael Kopper, another Enron financial executive, related to the special purposes entities they controlled. The affidavits, recently unsealed by the district court in Houston, were…
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Rep. DeLay Requests Quick Trial on Money Laundering Charge Only
After Judge Priest dismissed one of the three counts against Rep. Tom DeLay (see earlier post here), he has now requested that a severance of the two remaining counts of money laundering and conspiracy so he can go to trial quickly on just the money laundering count. Rep. DeLay and two aides were charged with…
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Enhancing a Tax Protester’s Sentence for Terrorism
Doug Berman on the venerable Sentencing Law & Policy blog has an interesting post (here) about the application of the terrorism enhancement to a tax protester case (U.S. v. Dowell here). The defendants were members of a "constitutional law group" — no doubt pondering the usual issues related to the propriety of the admission of…
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It’s A New Beginning for Patrick Fitzgerald
Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald began with a new grand today, according to the NYTimes here. Having a new grand jury in a white collar investigation is not unusual as the investigations can be long and very document intensive. And the newspapers are following every step they possibly can, considering that the grand jury is secret. The…
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