Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Today's fakes: former software king Sanjay Kumar, et al.

Back in the bubble years of the late 1990s, one of the high-profile people was the CEO of a company called Computer Associates, one Sanjay Kumar. CA built a huge consulting business by buying smaller companies and using their products as tools. But under Kumar's leadership, the company got into a habit of illegally revising its financial results, pre-dating contracts to bring something that was signed in, say, July, back into Q2, and so on.

Yesterday pled guilty to obstruction of justice and securities fraud charges in the case, in which five other CA executives also pleaded guilty. Kumar could get 20 years, though I'd be surprised if he even sees the inside of a police station. (Also: NYT story)

Down in Houston, the Enron trial plods on, with former CEO and George Bush funder Ken Lay testifying neatly, "I accept full responsibility for everything that happened at Enron. Having said that, I can't take responsibility for illegal acts I had no knowledge of." Nice, huh? Who's that remind you of? We had no idea that shit was going on at Abu Gharib.

And coming on the heels of several other stories, Vanity Fair provides a J.T. LeRoy wrapup.

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