A federal grand jury has indicted seventeen people over conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service of $13.1 million in illegal tax refunds. The scheme involved stealing the identity of over 300 nursing home patients to file fake tax returns.
The defendants used the information to file over 365 fraudulent federal tax returns in 27 states, [...]

After a five-week trial, former Brocade CEO Gregory L. Reyes was convicted by a federal court jury on 10 counts of conspiracy and fraud over illegal stock option backdating.
Mr. Reyes had been accused of intentionally changing the grant dates for hundreds of stock option awards without disclosing the move to investors. Sentencing is scheduled [...]

Ryan Brant, the former CEO of Take-Two Interactive Software (maker of popular video games such as “Grand Theft Auto”), has been sentenced to five years of probation for his role in overseeing the fraudulent backdating of stock options.
Mr. Brant pleaded guilty in back February. He had been facing up to four years in prison [...]

Swiss-based engineering group ABB announced this week that it may have violated the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) anti-bribery law after discovering suspect payments made by some employees overseas.
ABB said the probe is uncovering payments of concern made in Asia, South America, and Europe (with a particular focus on Italy).
The company disclosed that it [...]

Delta & Pine Co. (a cotton seed producer) has reached a settlement with the SEC to pay $300,000 over charges that it illegally bribed Turkish government officials in order to get documentation that reportedly would allow the company to operate in the country.
According to the SEC, Delta & Pine (which has since been acquired by [...]

Today, in a Denver courtroom packed with former US West and Qwest employees who lost their savings in the bankruptcy of the company, a federal judge sentenced the former chief executive who presided over the company’s demise to six years in prison.
Judge Edward Nottingham also ordered the ex-CEO, Joseph Nacchio, to pay a $19 [...]

According to an exclusive report coming out of Bloomberg, Medtronic, the world’s largest maker of electronic heart devices, has agreed to pay more than $75 million to settle lawsuits claiming it hid defects in its defibrillators.
Medtronic has been facing approximately 2,000 claims over battery defects in the defibrillators which are potentially fatal and had [...]

TRACE International, a non-profit membership association (and important partner of the Ethisphere Council) that helps companies combat bribery, announced the creation of a new database that can help businesses track the prevalence of bribery attempts and requests.
This new online tool, called BRIBEline, is backed by many leading organizations and companies such as Wal-Mart, International Paper, [...]

While the old adage of being caught with a “hand in the cookie jar” might seem appropriate in a stock options fraud case involving Wireless Facilities, this is certainly one of the biggest cookie jars we’ve ever seen. Vencent Donlan has been convicted of embezzling over $6.3 million from the company by – [...]

This past Friday a federal jury convicted media tycoon Conrad Black and three of his former executives at Hollinger International Inc. of fraud. At issue was whether he illegally pocketed money that should have gone to stockholders. Allegedly when Hollinger sold off newspaper assets, Black illegally diverted millions of dollars in “non-compete [...]

Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) has agreed to pay the $2.6 million to settle False Claims Act allegations. The company allegedly violated the civil False Claims Act by submitting inflated claims for payment between 2002-2005 for programs run by and through the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), and [...]

Agreeing to pay the federal government $16.5 million, Mellon Bank settled claims that it allowed overworked employees to destroy thousands of federal tax returns and payments in 2001.
Mellon had a contract with the I.R.S. to process income tax returns and tax-payment checks. Its employees, feeling overwhelmed and unable to meet the deadlines, destroyed over [...]

From our “in-case-you-missed-it-while-out-on-your- holidays-during-July” file the DOJ announced gleefully that four former executives with computer networking and security vendor Enterasys Networks Inc. had been sentenced to long prison terms for their roles in accounting fraud at the company.
The executives were originally convicted on conspiracy and fraud charges during a December 2006 trial.
In U.S. District Court [...]

A lawsuit against Fidelity Investments accuses the mutual fund giant of deliberately avoiding and violating portions of the U.S. Patriot Act. The whistle was blown on the company by, of all people, one of its former compliance officers. What has resulted is a mess of finger-pointing, additional lawsuits, and rush to put a seal on [...]

According to media reports, another oilfield services provider, Global Industries Ltd, is conducting an internal investigation into possible illegal payments in its West African operations. Specifically the company is looking into a subsidiary’s reimbursement of certain expenses incurred by a customs agent in connection with shipments of materials and the temporary importation of [...]

Several Nature’s Sunshine shareholders scored a partial victory when a federal judge denied most of the company’s efforts to dismiss a consolidated class action lawsuit.
The lawsuit accused the company and several executives of filing misleading Sarbanes-Oxley Act certifications, Form 10-Q earnings reports and press releases with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to illicit “clean” [...]

The SEC has settled charges against California-based software maker Mercury Interactive to the tune of $28 million. According to the SEC, former senior officers of the software maker perpetrated a fraudulent and deceptive scheme from 1997 to 2005 to award themselves and other employees undisclosed, secret compensation by backdating stock option grants, failing to [...]

Beazer Homes USA Inc., a homebuilder under investigation by the FBI for potential fraud has fired its chief accounting officer for violating the company’s ethics policy by attempting to destroy documents. According to a filing with the SEC, “Michael T. Rand has been terminated for cause . . . due to violations [...]

Some people just don’t get it… even when it is going on all around them.
Here is one example: Christian Deeb Rahaim, formerly a senior director of benefits for Enron’s HR department has been sentenced to 63 months in prison without possibility for parole. He has also been ordered to pay more than $2.9 million [...]

The SEC has filed and settled a FCPA books and records and internal controls violations charge against El Paso Corporation. At issue is that the NYSE-listed Texas energy company, during 2001 and 2002, indirectly paid nearly $5.5 million in illegal surcharges to Iraq in connection with its purchases of crude oil from third parties [...]