Brad Stinn Sentenced – Every Choice Has A Consequence – Update by Chuck Gallagher Ethics Speaker

On of the most viewed Blog entries was the one about Brad Stinn and Friedman’s Jewelers.

Pump up those sales! We’ve got to make the quarter! How often are those command heard and how tempting is it to make the wrong choices in order to please the investing public and Wall Street?

Following six weeks of trial – Bradley Stinn, age 47, – former CEO of Freidman’s, Inc. and Crescent Jewelers, found himself being convicted of securities fraud, mail fraud and conspiracy. Likewise, in addition to Stinn’s conviction, the former CFO, Victor Suglia and form Controller, John Mauro have entered guilty pleas into what was a massive accounting fraud.

Having been found guilty, the wheels of justice in the federal system move slowly at times.  Many have wondered just what outcome would befall Brad Stinn  who some hated and others sympathized with.  Well, today the verdict has been handed down.

His sentence:

12 years in federal prison

3 years probation

$4M restitution

He should report sometime in the next 60 days

Speaking from experience, Stinn will be required to serve 85% of his active sentence, which means that he’ll serve 122.4 months – which is a long time!

US Attorney’s New Release:

Bradley Stinn, the former Chief Executive Officer of Friedman’s Inc. and its affiliate, Crescent Jewelers, was sentenced today to 12 years’ imprisonment for securities fraud, mail fraud, and conspiracy. On March 24, 2008, following a six-week trial, a federal jury in Brooklyn convicted Stinn on all counts in the indictment and returned a forfeiture verdict against him in the amount of $1,019,000. The trial and sentencing proceeding were held before Senior United States District Judge Nina Gershon.

The sentence was announced by Benton J. Campbell, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

During the period of the conspiracy, Friedman’s was a national jewelry chain whose shares were traded on the New York Stock Exchange. The evidence at trial established that Stinn led a multi-year securities fraud scheme that inflated Friedman’s reported financial performance and hid from the market the serious problems the company had collecting money owed for hundreds of millions of dollars of jewelry that it had sold on credit. As part of the scheme, Stinn and his co-conspirators repeatedly lied to shareholders and the investing public about Friedman’s financial performance, made false and fraudulent representations to Friedman’s auditors, and manipulated the company’s accounting in order to prevent auditors from discovering the falsity of Friedman’s financial statements. As found by the court at sentencing, Stinn’s fraud scheme resulted in Friedman’s shareholders and other victims of the scheme losing more than $20 million.

Several months after the announcement of the government’s investigation in November 2003, Friedman’s stock was de-listed from the New York Stock Exchange. Friedman’s ultimately filed for bankruptcy in January 2005.

As always, this blog is open for comments.

Do you think that this sentence is fair?

Would you, if you had the opportunity to serve on a jury, have given Brad – more, less or this amount a punishment for his guilty plea?

COMMENTS ARE WELCOME!

Ethics Speaker Chuck Gallagher to Address University of South Dakota Business Ethics Symposium

VERMILLION, S.D. – During troubled economic times, Chuck Gallagher isn’t afraid to share his story of success – and how he lost it all. Gallagher, a business executive and motivational speaker, will be a guest of the Beacom School of Business of The University of South Dakota on Monday, April 27 at 7 p.m. in the Wayne S. Knutson Theatre.

Gallagher, a former CPA who lost everything because of poor choices, will present the program “Choices: Negative Consequences, Positive Results” where he will discuss some of the decisions he made in his attempts to make a better life for he and his family. Gallagher eventually lost it all, spent time in federal prison, but has found success again by making the right choices – personally and professionally.

“My lecture deals with issues of business ethics, particularly the choices we make in life and the consequences that follow,” says Gallagher. “Having been a successful CPA in the 80s, spent time in federal prison in the 90s and risen to the level of senior VP in a public company in the 2000s, I can speak from experience that I’ve lived with negative consequences thanks to some very stupid choices I made. But I’ve also had some incredible positive results based on the choices I made after spending time in a federal prison.”

Gallagher’s message is sure to resonate with students who are seeking answers on what it takes to be successful in today’s business world despite the presence of poor ethics and negative consequences. Ultimately, he explains, it’s about students differentiating themselves – positively – from their peers.

“I’m the poster child of what not to do,” he admits. “Ethical issues aren’t always black and white. If you want to be successful, ask the question ‘what are you doing to differentiate yourself?’”

A professional speaker, business entrepreneur, and sales executive, Gallagher has led a $40 million sales region with 125 sales representatives and started his own training business with projects in 30 states. Gallagher currently helps employees increase their sales results and skills while realizing the ramifications of their ethical choices. In addition to addressing students and audiences at colleges and universities throughout the United States, Gallagher also shares his business ethics message with business-related and health care related organizations.

“Choices: Negative Consequences, Positive Results” is made possible by the Beacom Opportunity Fund and the Arthur A. Volk Symposium. The Beacom Opportunity Fund provides resources for initiatives that promote the Beacom School of Business’s students and programs. Funding from the Volk Symposium affords opportunities for the business school to bring together students, academicians, and business leaders for discussion of current topics of interest. For more information about “Choices: Negative Consequences, Positive Results,” please contact the Beacom School of Business at (605) 677-5455.

A photograph of Gallagher is available for download at www.usd.edu/urelations/images/Chuck_Gallagher.jpg.

About The University of South Dakota
Founded in 1862, The University of South Dakota is designated as the only public liberal arts university in the state and is home to a comprehensive College of Arts and Sciences, School of Education, the state’s only School of Law, School of Medicine, School of Health Sciences, the accredited Beacom School of Business and the College of Fine Arts. It has an enrollment of approximately 9,200 students taught by 400 faculty members. More information is available at www.usd.edu/press/news.

Funeral Fraud – LA Women Charged in $1 Million Fake Funeral Scam – AMAZING!

I have heard of many things, but this one ranks high in creative approaches to scamming.  The R I P button likely stands for Resides In Prison cause that’s where these two will go if the charges alleged are proven.

According to the US Attorney’s office in LA – two women – allegedly participated in a scheme to cash life insurance policies for fictitious individuals and stage  funerals to create the appearance that the individuals had died.

According to the indictment, Shilling, a phlebotomist, and Crump, an employee at a now-defunct Long Beach mortuary, defrauded multiple insurance companies over a three-year period by cashing life insurance policies for non-existent identities, whom they claimed had died. As part of the scheme, Shilling and Crump allegedly caused the preparation of bogus death certificates, purchased burial plots and staged phony funerals to lend credibility to the scheme. When staging the funerals, the women allegedly filled caskets with various materials to make it appear they contained actual corpses.

Shilling and Crump allegedly defrauded several lending companies that advance cash to cover funeral expenses in exchange for a portion of the decedent’s life insurance policy. Shilling, Crump and their accomplices allegedly filed false documents with the County of Los Angeles stating the remains of one man were cremated and scattered at sea, when in fact no corpse existed. The indictment further alleges that defendant Crump offered a medical doctor $50,000 to create records supporting the fake death certificate.

According to a report in Connectingdirectors.com:

The US Attorney stated said the “dead” were likely fictitious people, but said identities of real people may have been stolen.

In one funeral at a Long Beach mortuary, authorities alleged that the women loaded a casket with various items to simulate the weight of a corpse they called “Jim Davis.” They purchased a plot in a Compton graveyard, had a funeral and had the casket buried.

In addition to the life insurance claims, which included a $250,000 policy, prosecutors said the women secured payments from financing companies to pay for inflated funeral costs.  We talked with representatives from American Funeral Financial (one of our sponsors) to ask about precautions for such activity.

We (at American Funeral Financial) work hard to provide service to our customers – the many funeral homes and cemeteries across the country that rely on us for funeral funding.  This story is quite amazing and not remotely normal in the standard course of business.  We make sure that we know our customers and have a comfort level of their viability before we enter into any funding transactions.  The steps we deal with to make funeral funding decisions should prevent this type of fraud from happening.  Still this is quite amazing.

Shilling and Crump were charged with mail fraud and wire fraud in connection with a scheme to defraud insurance companies and lending companies out of more than $750,000.  Two other women, Lydia Eileen Pearce, 37, owner of a mortuary in Long Beach, and Barbara Lynn, 54, a notary from Los Angeles, previously pleaded guilty in the alleged scam, said Montero, and he believed that more arrests were likely.

If convicted, they could face 20 years in prison.

YOUR COMMENTS WELCOME!