(CNN) — A judge sentenced a self-help expert to a total of two years in prison Friday for his role in the deaths of three people in a 2009 sweat lodge ceremony in the Arizona desert.

The judge instead imposed three two-year terms, to be served concurrently.

Ray and his attorneys asked for probation, but Judge Warren R. Darrow said the evidence shows “extreme negligence on the part of Mr. Ray.”

“A prison sentence is just mandated in this case,” he said.

During the trial, prosecutors argued that Ray’s recklessness caused the deaths of Kirby Brown, 38, of Westtown, New York; James Shore, 40, of Milwaukee; and Lizbeth Marie Neuman, 49, of Prior Lake, Minnesota. At least 15 others who took part in the sweat lodge ceremony became ill.

The lodge, made of willow trees and branches and covered with tarpaulins and blankets, was heated to a perilously high temperature, causing the participants to suffer dehydration and heatstroke, prosecutors alleged.

Ray tearfully told the court that he has “no excuse” for what happened that October day or since.”At the end of the day, I lost three friends, and I lost them on my watch,” he said. “And whatever errors in judgment or mistakes I made, I’m going to have to live with those for the rest of my life.”

Ray asked Darrow to sentence him to probation, saying he is no threat to society and promising never to conduct another sweat lodge ceremony again.

“It pains me beyond belief to be here today, with the best of intentions gone wrong,” he said.

Before Darrow announced his judgment, prosecutor Sheila Polk characterized Ray as a dangerous “pretender” who had cast himself as a victim of an overzealous prosecution.

And relatives of the victims told Darrow that Ray has done little to redeem himself and that he deserved the maximum possible sentence of nine years in prison.

“My heart’s been ripped out. My life has been blown apart, and the pieces are yet to land,” said Virginia Brown, Kirby Brown’s mother.

As I share in my seminars – “Every Choice Has A Consequence” – based on the published facts and circumstances – what do you think about the James Ray sentence?  YOUR COMMENTS ARE WELCOME!

Okay we don’t talk sports or even news much in this space.  We’re usually looking at principles of success and prosperity.  But this Penn State scandal is so teeming with lack consciousness, I feel compelled to say something about it.

True prosperity is always a value-for-value proposition.  And what that comes down to is doing the right thing. 

And for Penn State to blithely go about playing their big football game against Nebraska this weekend is so far beyond adding insult to injury it’s a travesty.

Let’s look at the facts from the grand jury we know so far…

In March of 2002, assistant coach Mike McQueary then 28, entered the locker room to pick up some recruiting tapes.  He heard “rhythmic, slapping sounds.”  He went to the shower and saw a naked 10-year-old boy, “With his hands up against the wall, being subjected to anal intercourse by a naked Sandusky.”

He doesn’t intervene.  Doesn’t call police.  He’s so shocked and confused, he simply leaves.  He went home and called his father.  The next day he tells coach Joe Paterno.  Coach Paterno waits a day, and then tells the Athletic Director.

What happens next?

The witnessed rape of a defenseless boy recruited from a program for disadvantaged youth somehow gets classified as “horseplay.”  The university tells Sandusky not to bring boys on campus.  No one attempts to find or treat the boy.  That’s it!

We now learn that there was another incident with Sandusky in 1998.  A campus detective was ordered to close the case by his boss.  Then in 2000, a janitor witnessed Sandusky performing oral sex on a boy in the shower.  It wasn’t reported…

Penn State University has exhibited the most grievous, flagrant and criminal behavior of a university in modern history.  They let (at least) eight boys continue to be subjected to predatory abuse from a pedophile for 15 years.

And Sandusky is behind bars now, not because of any help from Penn State.  It was a wrestling coach and assistant principal at a High School who finally caught Sandusky with a boy in the weight room and immediately called police.

And it could be getting much, much worse…

Zac Wassink, who’s a Penn State alum I believe, is reporting on his Yahoo blog that Pittsburgh radio host Mark Madden dropped an ever bigger bombshell on a program today…

Madden said that two columnists are investigating a rumor that Sandusky’s Foundation was “pimping out young boys to rich (Penn State) donors.”  He also said Sandusky was told by Penn State he had to retire after allegations made in 1998 that he was guilty of “improper conduct with an underage male.”  It’s important to note that these are rumors at this point.   But Madden has been correct with other information on this scandal up to now.  And it just shows how much smoke there was before this fire, that Penn State completely ignored.

Now the facts get out, beloved “Coach JoPa” is fired and Penn State students start a riot in protest.  Are these kids the most naïve, clueless, and ignorant students in the world?  This is the higher education Penn State is supplying them?

Now those same kids are fired up and want revenge by crushing Nebraska in their big rivalry football game this weekend…

Think of the worst sports scandal you can ever think of:  Recruiting bribery, fixed football matches, crooked jai alai players, the Chicago “Black Sox.”  They wouldn’t even rate a footnote on this.

What we are seeing unveiled here is the worst sports scandal in history.  Because we’re not talking about throwing games, making bets, or enriching bank accounts.  We’re talking about evil, horrific abuse of defenseless children.  And one of the most powerful institutions of higher learning in the land, turning a blind eye to their anguished cries for help – so as not to risk their cash-generating, powerhouse football program, with lucrative television rights deals.  It is absolutely sickening, the disgusting demonstration of lack-centered, anti-humanity and thus anti-prosperity consciousness I can conceive of.

Except this…

Now the student body wants to rush into the stadium this weekend, trot out the mascot, scream with the cheerleaders, and sing the fight song with the marching band, as the coaches scheme the passing routes to try and beat Nebraska.

Do the right thing Penn State:  Forfeit the game. 

Cancel the rest of the season perhaps.  Help locate those kids and get them some help.  Raise awareness for the issues of sexual predators.  Maybe schedule some extra classes and start teaching your students about principles like doing the right thing, and looking out for those that can’t take care of themselves, instead rioting to protest your coach losing his contract.

A scoutmaster once molested me when I was young.  And I have to tell you that the man who was my unofficial step-father at the time, kind of brushed it off.  I didn’t go on any more camping trips and was never left alone with him, and quit soon after.

In this case it was a sick man fondling a prepubescent boy one time.  I moved on, and it didn’t scar me for life.  But that man should have been stopped and I shudder to think how many other boys he continued to prey on.

I come from a pretty simple family and we didn’t know how to deal with issues like that, just as it’s likely the families of these eight boys didn’t know how to deal with this.

But we need to hold Penn State to a high standard here.  This was wanton, systemic neglect of kids from an institution charged with safeguarding them.  Those kids were sacrificed on the altar of multi-million-dollar television contracts.

Pomp and circumstance, cheerleaders and marching bands – a football game this weekend?  Is that the message you really want to send?  The kids – all of them – deserve better.

Do the right thing Penn Sate.  Shut it down.  Now.

-RG

I try not to be biased, but I had my doubts about hiring Stevie. His placement counselor assured me that he would be a good, reliable busboy.
But I had never had a mentally handicapped employee and wasn’t sure I wanted one. I wasn’t sure how my customers would react to Stevie.
He was short, a little dumpy with the smooth facial features and thick-tongued speech of Downs Syndrome. I wasn’t worried about most of my trucker customers because truckers don’t generally care who buses tables as long as the meatloaf platter is good and the pies are homemade.

The four-wheeler drivers were the ones who concerned me; the mouthy college kids traveling to school; the yuppie snobs who secretly polish their silverware with their napkins for fear of catching some dreaded ‘truck stop germ’ the pairs of white-shirted business men on expense accounts who think every truck stop waitress wants to be flirted with.. I knew those people would be uncomfortable around Stevie so I closely watched him for the first few weeks.

I shouldn’t have worried. After the first week, Stevie had my staff wrapped around his stubby little finger, and within a month my truck regulars had adopted him as their official truck stop mascot.

After that, I really didn’t care what the rest of the customers thought of him. He was like a 21-year-old kid in blue jeans and Nikes, eager to laugh and eager to please, but fierce in his attention to his duties. Every salt and pepper shaker was exactly in its place, not a bread crumb or coffee spill was visible when Stevie got done with the table. Our only problem was persuading him to wait to clean a table until after the customers were finished. He would hover in the background, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, scanning the dining room until a table was empty. Then he would scurry to the empty table and carefully bus dishes and glasses onto his cart and meticulously wipe the table up with a practiced flourish of his rag. If he thought a customer was watching, his brow would pucker with added concentration. He took pride in doing his job exactly right, and you had to love how hard he tried to please each and every person he met.

Over time, we learned that he lived with his mother, a widow who was disabled after repeated surgeries for cancer. They lived on their Social Security benefits in public housing two miles from the truck stop. Their social worker, who stopped to check on him every so often, admitted they had fallen between the cracks. Money was tight, and what I paid him was probably the difference between them being able to live together and Stevie being sent to a group home. That’s why the restaurant was a gloomy place that morning last August, the first morning in three years that Stevie missed work.

He was at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester getting a new valve or something put in his heart. His social worker said that people with Downs Syndrome often have heart problems at an early age so this wasn’t unexpected, and there was a good chance he would come through the surgery in good shape and be back at work in a few months.

A ripple of excitement ran through the staff later that morning when word came that he was out of surgery, in recovery, and doing fine.

Frannie, the head waitress, let out a war hoop and did a little dance in the aisle when she heard the good news.

Marvin Ringers, one of our regular trucker customers, stared at the sight of this 50-year-old grandmother of four doing a victory shimmy beside his table

Frannie blushed, smoothed her apron and shot Marvin a withering look.

He grinned. ‘OK, Frannie, what was that all about?’ he asked.

‘We just got word that Stevie is out of surgery and going to be okay.’

‘I was wondering where he was. I had a new joke to tell him. What was the surgery about?’

Frannie quickly told Marvin and the other two drivers sitting at his booth about Stevie’s surgery, then sighed: ‘ Yeah, I’m glad he is going to be OK,’ she said. ‘But I don’t know how he and his Mom are going to handle all the bills. From what I hear, they’re barely getting by as it is.’ Marvin nodded thoughtfully, and Frannie hurried off to wait on the rest of her tables. Since I hadn’t had time to round up a busboy to replace Stevie and really didn’t want to replace him, the girls were busing their own tables that day until we decided what to do.

After the morning rush, Frannie walked into my office. She had a couple of paper napkins in her hand and a funny look on her face.

‘What’s up?’ I asked.

‘I didn’t get that table where Marvin and his friends were sitting cleared off after they left, and Pete and Tony were sitting there when I got back to clean it off,’ she said. ‘This was folded and tucked under a coffee cup’

She handed the napkin to me, and three $20 bills fell onto my desk when I opened it.. On the outside, in big, bold letters, was printed ‘Something For Stevie.’

‘Pete asked me what that was all about,’ she said, ‘so I told him about Stevie and his Mom and everything, and Pete looked at Tony and Tony looked at Pete, and they ended up giving me this.’ She handed me another paper napkin that had ‘Something For Stevie’ scrawled on its outside. Two $50 bills were tucked within its folds. Frannie looked at me with wet, shiny eyes, shook her head and said simply: ‘truckers.’

That was three months ago. Today is Thanksgiving, the first day Stevie is supposed to be back to work.

His placement worker said he’s been counting the days until the doctor said he could work, and it didn’t matter at all that it was a holiday. He called 10 times in the past week, making sure we knew he was coming, fearful that we had forgotten him or that his job was in jeopardy. I arranged to have his mother bring him to work. I then met them in the parking lot and invited them both to celebrate his day back.

Stevie was thinner and paler, but couldn’t stop grinning as he pushed through the doors and headed for the back room where his apron and busing cart were waiting..

‘Hold up there, Stevie, not so fast,’ I said. I took him and his mother by their arms. ‘Work can wait for a minute. To celebrate your coming back, breakfast for you and your mother is on me!’ I led them toward a large corner booth at the rear of the room.

I could feel and hear the rest of the staff following behind as we marched through the dining room. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw booth after booth of grinning truckers empty and join the procession. We stopped in front of the big table. Its surface was covered with coffee cups, saucers and dinner plates, all sitting slightly crooked on dozens of folded paper napkins. ‘First thing you have to do, Stevie, is clean up this mess,’ I said. I tried to sound stern.

Stevie looked at me, and then at his mother, then pulled out one of the napkins. It had ‘Something for Stevie’ printed on the outside. As he picked it up, two $10 bills fell onto the table.

Stevie stared at the money, then at all the napkins peeking from beneath the tableware, each with his name printed or scrawled on it. I turned to his mother. ‘There’s more than $10,000 in cash and checks on that table, all from truckers and trucking companies that heard about your problems. ‘Happy Thanksgiving.’

Well, it got real noisy about that time, with everybody hollering and shouting, and there were a few tears, as well.

But you know what’s funny? While everybody else was busy shaking hands and hugging each other, Stevie, with a big smile on his face, was busy clearing all the cups and dishes from the table.

Best worker I ever hired.

Plant a seed and watch it grow.

News Release

The University of Arizona announced the launch of the Center for Leadership Ethics, which brings existing education, research and outreach programs into one group at the Eller College of Management.

The goal of the center is to cause “a fundamental change in the way we do business,” said Executive Director Stephen Gilliland.

He said he hopes future business leaders will study ethics as seriously as they study accounting or other business topics.

The center will invite the heads of ethics and compliance from large companies to share their latest challenges and learn about the latest research findings, he said.

The center will focus on all kinds of leadership ethics, including business and public-sector management, but will not include political ethics.

Forming a center allows the existing programs to attract new grants and donations, and also increases the visibility of the programs, Gilliland said.

About a dozen faculty members already are involved with the center, including research director Russell Cropanzano and founding director Paul Melendez.

The center also will include a selective student group called the Eller Board of Honor and Integrity, which will coordinate outreach programs such as the High School Ethics Forum and the Collegiate Ethics Case Competition.

The founding corporate partner at the center is Phoenix-based Merchants Information Solutions, which offers behavioral integrity tests for hiring.

CEO Russ Johnson said he was impressed by plans for the center when his company did a presentation about integrity tests on campus last semester. Merchants made an undisclosed but “substantial” three-year gift to the center, he said.

The company makes its proprietary tests and data available to UA researchers, who in turn work with the company on ways to improve the tests.

Other corporate partners at the center include EthicsPoint and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Contact reporter Becky Pallack at bpallack@azstarnet.com or 807-8012.

Excerpts from a CNN article state the following:

Even after the man who stole 67-year-old Frances Wills’ entire life savings was sentenced to nine years in prison, she still didn’t feel as if justice had been served.

Mitchell will begin his sentence on Sept. 23. But it may take longer for Wills — who still can’t sleep at night or stop crying — to move on.

“I’m still hurting inside,” she said. “Nine years is not enough for what he’s done to all these people. We want him to suffer like we suffered.”

“It looks like there’s just no money to be had, so there’s nothing we can do,” said Anand. “It’s sad because many of these people are in terrible, terrible circumstances.”

“I used to get up at 2:30 a.m. to get to work driving my bus,” said Wills, who lost the $156,000 she had saved from her job as a Long Beach Transit bus driver for 23 years. “And then for him to just take it out of greed — I want to know: What did he do with our money?”

The judge at Mitchell’s sentencing invited victims to tell their stories in court. One woman took 30 pages of notes with her and didn’t leave until she was completely done. Others were such emotional wrecks they couldn’t stand to address the court.

“The whole courtroom was full of tears,” said Wills. “All Mitchell did was sit there and look stupid. There were a lot of people in there who wanted to slap him upside the head.”

According to court documents, Mitchell promised his clients returns of up to 12.5% on their investments to lure them in, but would then only invest “a miniscule fraction” of their money. He would make monthly payments to keep his clients from worrying — and which many used for living expenses.

Notice one of the biggest evidences that a fraud is happening is an UNREASONABLE PROMISE.  In the lectures I give on fraud prevention, I generally share that victims fall into the PIT.  That means the first part of the PIT is an Unreasonable PROMISE.  Mitchell promised his clients (victims rather) returns of up to 12.5%.  That’s a NEON sign flashing SUCKER I’m ABOUT TO ROB YOU!

But Mitchell meanwhile used the rest of the money his clients had invested for himself. By the end, he didn’t even have enough money to pay his victims the monthly stipends.

Wills relied on those monthly checks from Mitchell. When they stopped coming, she had to sell her home and move into a mobile home. She can’t afford to pay her bills or fix her broken-down car. And she had to apply for food stamps a few weeks ago and now asks her children to help her out.

Some of the other victims duped by the Ponzi scheme include Bobby Bradley, a 70-year-old retired bus driver who lost his life savings of $215,000 and is now looking for work again.

An MTA service attendant, Charles Black, said he watched 23 years of his life go down the drain when he found out his entire retirement stash — $250,000 — was gone.

Mitchell’s own cousin, Robbie Gilbert — who lost $150,000 in retirement savings to Mitchell — wasn’t able to make it to the sentencing. But she said the fact that he will be behind bars for the next nine years is enough to ease her anger for the time being.

There are three components of most frauds from the perspective of the VICTIMS:  (1) Promise; (2) Illusion and (3) Trust.

Let’s look at what was reported and see if we can find those components.  ILLUSION – according to reports Mitchell used funds from other victims to pay earlier victims creating the Illusion that there were actually returns from investments taking place.

Ah, but the hook that gets VICTIMS in – in the first place – is the PROMISE.  Here the promise was a return (plus principle) of up to 12.5%.  I can’t speak to why…but in every case it seems clear that “investors” seem to gravitate to something that “others can’t have” – some call it greed.  I think, rather than greed, we have a psychological desire to be above average and if someone offers something that seems real that is “off limits” to the average guy…then we are more apt to bite.  Guess it’s DNA to want what we can’t or shouldn’t have…just think of the apple.  (Some readers will get that!)

Now, let’s be honest.  A PROMISE of a 12.5% return is not reasonable and ANY PROMISE of a guaranteed return should give us a moment to pause and investigate further!

The funny part about a Ponzi Scheme is that the ILLUSION that supports the PROMISE actually creates the TRUST needed to perpetuate the scheme.  More times than not, the “investors” VICTIMS actually are the ones that turn others on to the “scam” without having any knowledge that they are luring others into the trap!

The Ponzi scheme only collapses when the source of funding dries up.  Most of the time, the scheme gets so large and top heavy (the need for additional funding becomes so great) that it collapses on itself.

So…the FBI suggests the following which is worth repeating:

So how can you avoid being victimized by a Ponzi scheme? A few tips:

• Be careful of any investment opportunity that makes exaggerated earnings claims.
• Exercise due diligence in selecting investments and the people with whom you invest—in other words, do your homework!
• Consult an unbiased third party, like an unconnected broker or licensed financial advisor, before investing.

If you were victimized by Thomas Mitchell and have wisdom to share with others about how to avoid being scammed, please share!

YOUR COMMENTS ARE WELCOME!

One December day in 2008, Eleanor Squillari’s boss was arrested for securities fraud. The next day, the secretary arrived at her office to find it a scene of utter chaos: phones ringing, faxes spewing paper, FBI agents strutting around and a couple of dozen red-faced investors in the lobby demanding blood, or at least an explanation.

Squillari didn’t know what to tell the clients of the man for whom she’d worked for 25 years. She also didn’t know if she’d been unintentionally complicit. Even if she’d never once felt that something might have been amiss, in clients’ eyes she was at least guilty by association. So the following year, when the secretary decided to go public in a Vanity Fair article with her account of a quarter-century spent working for Bernie Madoff, it was hard to begrudge her a voice. As one G-man told her, “You need to take care of yourself, because nobody else will.”

No doubt Nan DeMars feels some empathy for Squillari. DeMars spent 20 years as a corporate secretary in Minnesota, and through her leadership role with the International Association of Administrative Professionals, she was responsible for authoring her profession’s first ever code of ethics. Now president of her own consulting firm, DeMars has become a popular media expert on the subject of ethics in the workplace. In You’ve Got to Be Kidding: How to Keep Your Job without Losing Your Integrity (Wiley), DeMars offers a comprehensive guide to navigating the ethical traps found in every workplace.

Of course, the subject of business ethics now sees much more attention than it once did (not least from Saint Mary’s prof Chris MacDonald, whose thoughtful blog on business ethics is published on canadianbusiness.com). DeMars observes that in the U.S. alone more than 300 colleges and universities now offer ethics curricula, whereas a decade ago it was fewer than 10. She recognizes that, unlike her first book on this topic in 1998, this one arrives in “a ‘we get it’ climate.” But however widely businesses have adopted codes of ethics to govern behaviour in the workplace, the ideal “ethical office” that DeMars describes isn’t attainable through the enforcement of rules. Not only is it impossible to anticipate in such a code every possible variable or potential dilemma, but always “it is possible to satisfy the letter of the law while still committing an act that most reasonable people would consider unethical or immoral.” Even if accepting a gift from a potential client isn’t explicitly proscribed, does that make it right?

Before this starts to sound like the annual lecture from management—perhaps you’re one of those corporate employees forced to sleepwalk through an intranet quiz once in a while to prove to your higher-ups that you’re familiar with the company’s code of conduct—consider DeMars’s argument for the value of the ethical office from a personal standpoint: “In order to live happily and at peace with ourselves, we have to live in ways that are congruent with our morals,” she argues. (Morals, as DeMars defines them, are the principles of a person’s character, while ethics is a system of moral values, the set of rules or expectations publicly accepted by a group.) “For us to work happily and productively, we need to share common ethical standards with our coworkers,” she writes. If the ethics in your office are at odds with your personal values, it invariably makes you unhappy. “And the larger the gap, the greater your level of stress.” That’s why the onus for ethical behaviour lies so firmly with each employee. A code of conduct is just ink on paper; it’s how the group brings it to life that ultimately matters.

So what to do about it? The bulk of You’ve Got to Be Kidding is a subject-by-subject manual for dealing with the most common office dilemmas. There are chapters on workplace gossip, on the vagaries of loyalty, on expense accounts, whistleblowing, vendor relationships and even pornography. But as DeMars says, a written set of rules will never anticipate every situation—and not every ethical quandary will offer choices in black and white. So the most valuable tool DeMars provides is what she calls an “Ethical Priority Compass.”

The tool’s goal is to provide “a hierarchical approach to resolving ethical dilemmas,” and it’s an incredibly simple one: First, take care of yourself. In every situation that arises, DeMars writes, “you must protect your professional reputation and your financial security—and do so in a way that is aligned with your personal morals and values.” Second, take care of your company and its customers. Worry about your supervisors last.

It’s the relationship with our supervisors that often leads us onto the most treacherous terrain, and DeMars devotes plenty of words to the subject. By her reckoning, your boss is the first person you should go to if confronted with an ethical dilemma—even if your boss is the source of the problem. You should be careful not to “immediately leap to the conclusion that he or she is the enemy.” It’s always worth making the effort to preserve that relationship, even if you’re uncomfortable with some of the person’s behaviour. Despite its unequal power dynamic, the relationship, DeMars argues, can be more elastic than is apparent, and she offers a 20-step method to ethically manage up. “You have more power than you think you do to affect your boss’s ethical (or unethical) decisions,” she says.

Those decisions may draw you in actively—“Do me a favour and shred everything in that cabinet, would you?”—or passively, in the expectation that you’ll turn a blind eye if you see something amiss. DeMars’s ethical priority compass will help you audit your decisions about how to respond to situations that seem ethically questionable, whether with a co-worker or a manager. If your boss is a Madoff—or just misguided—no code of conduct will steer you right except your own.

Feeling abandoned by the U of M program in his conviction for his massive Ponzi Scheme…Shapiro is now speaking out loudly from his Atlanta prison cell suggesting the U of M program might face the “death penalty” as his hand.  The question is – is any of this real?

In an interview:

Shapiro said for the first time that not only was it players who sought favor with him, but also Hurricanes football staff was involved. According to Shapiro’s attorney, Maria Elena Perez, the information first came out under questioning by federal officials and bankruptcy trustee attorneys.

Shapiro is at the heart of an NCAA investigation and his involvement with the school dates back to 2001-2002. Shapiro’s attorney has claimed that he provided UM players with the use of a yacht and various other favors.

Shapiro said he gave money, cars, yacht trips, jewelry, televisions and other gifts to a list of players including Vince Wilfork, Jon Beason, Antrel Rolle, Devin Hester, Willis McGahee and the late Sean Taylor of the Washington Redskins.

Shapiro also claimed he paid for nightclub outings, sex parties, restaurant meals and in one case, an abortion for a woman impregnated by a player. One former Miami player, running back Tyrone Moss, told Yahoo! Sports he accepted $1,000 from Shapiro at about the time he was entering college.

QUESTION:  What do you think about Nevin’s allegations?  Is he trying to gain favor by cooperating in a federal investigation (and thereby reduce his sentence)?  Do you think there is validity to his allegations?

COMMENT: One interesting aspect to Shapiro’s claims is that they would be consistent with the behavior of a Ponzi fraudster.  Most fraudsters tend to flaunt their ill gotten wealth as the reality is what they have is valueless to them since it cost nothing to begin with.  Most importantly, the fraudster is flaunting money in order to meet a need or feed ego.  So…not having the facts (which will come out) I have a sense that Shapiro’s claims may, at least in part, be true.

Interesting links:

http://chuckgallagher.wordpress.com/2010/05/11/another-ponzi-scheme-nevin-shapiro-from-the-fbi-website-no-less/

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/campusrivalry/post/2011/08/miami-athletes-cash-gifts-ponzi-scheme/1

http://galvestondailynews.com/ap/ee9797/

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/17/2362972/accused-ponzi-swindler-nevin-shapiro.html

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/17/2364074/questions-arise-as-um-reels-from.html

YOUR COMMENTS ARE WELCOME!

Pakaluk and Cheffers… have tackled every major ethics issue currently facing the accounting profession.

Sutton, Mass. (PRWEB) August 17, 2011

The fruit of a collaboration between a Harvard PhD and ethics specialist (Pakaluk) and a Harvard MBA and forensic accountant (Cheffers), “Accounting Ethics” is an entirely new treatment of the subject that reads like a detective story while imparting a deep understanding of professional ethics for accountants.

The book’s treatment of the role of accounting ethics failures in the financial crisis connects the dots between AIG’s first massive accounting ethics failures, dating back over 20 years, and AIG’s more recent accounting irregularities that—as Ben Bernanke and Timothy Geithner have stated—nearly brought the world’s financial system to its knees.

Pakaluk and Cheffers also examine accounting ethics issues associated with Enron, Worldcom, Lehman Brothers and more, paying particular attention to clashes between rules and principles, conflicting interests and the challenges facing corporate accountants, Big Four auditors (Ernst & Young, KPMG, PWC and Deloitte), the FASB, AICPA, and related regulatory bodies.

While not a “gotcha” book designed to point fingers, Pakaluk and Cheffers, in their third book on accounting ethics, have tackled every major ethics issue currently facing the accounting profession, including well established traditions such as independence, codifications of conduct, professional foundations and whether or not accounting ethics can be taught. The authors support their insistence on the importance of accounting ethics using historical, philosophical, and sociological research.

This book’s attractive presentation of deep philosophical thought– that will enlighten even the most experienced accountant—using a fast moving who-dun-it style, will keep practicing professionals and students alike glued to the pages.

“If you never could have imagined a textbook in accounting that through large sections reads like a detective novel, well, one has been created, courtesy of the once unimaginable professional and ethical breakdowns in a slew of major companies: Enron, AIG, and others. … The clear expositions and well-argued principles set forth in this suspenseful book give intellectual grounding to a profession that utterly relies on courageous honesty and integrity, as exemplified in this book’s opening pages. That is what accounting brings to the market, and without it the practice is empty of value.”

—Michael Novak, Ambassador, Templeton Prize winner and author of The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

“If you are familiar with Understanding Accounting Ethics, either the second edition or the original, also written by Pakaluk and Cheffers, you will immediately see the same passion for ethics evident in their latest book. Smart accountants will make it an essential part of their personal ‘business bookshelf,’ while the smartest accountants will actually take it off the shelf and read its chapters periodically.”

—Jonathan Hamilton, Accounting News Report

About the Authors:

Michael Pakaluk, Ph.D., is a professor of philosophy and currently is the Chairman of the philosophy department at Ave Maria University in Naples, Florida. He has written extensively on ancient ethics and morality. Dr. Pakaluk’s expertise in accounting ethics, in conjunction with his position as Senior Research Analyst and Public Policy Consultant with the Ives Group, Inc., led to an invitation to present a seminar on accounting professionalism and IFRS convergence for the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) in 2009.

Mark Cheffers, C.P.A., A.B.V., is the Founder and CEO of Ives Group, Inc., an independent research provider focused on developing web based due diligence and market intelligence tools. Its subscribers include many of the most prestigious professional service firms, educational institutions and regulatory bodies in the world. A former PWC auditor, forensic accountant and ligation consultant, Cheffers has delivered numerous seminars and written extensively on accounting malpractice, ethics, and financial reporting matters.

Product Information:

Accounting Ethics…And the Near Collapse of the World’s Financial System
By: Michael Pakaluk and Mark Cheffers
ISBN: 9780976528036, 424 pages, $75.00

Order Through the Allen David Press Website:

On Amazon:

Or contact sales representative, Mr. Thomas Hardy:
Tom(dot)Hardy(at)AllenDavidPress(dot)com

Ex-Lawmaker to Go to Prison in Old Dominion U. Case

August 12, 2011, 2:58 pm

Universities Get Advice on How to Avoid Ghostwriting Scandals in Research Articles