NEW: White Washed!

Nate Orenstam
Sunday, August 15, 2004

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Former CEO Convicted

(San Francisco, CA)  Phil White, former CEO of Informix, who was convicted of eight counts of securities fraud for filing known false statements with the SEC, has now been sentenced to 2 months in federal prison, a $10,000 fine and dinner without desert.  White, 61, pled guitly in November 2002 that he filed knowingly false statements that overstated company revenues by more than $300 million over a three year period not including tips.  The fraud cost investors more than one billion dollars in losses and resulted in one of the biggest accounting scandals to hit Silicon Valley, ultimately leading to Informix's acquisition by rival IBM for $38 and a case of Pepto Bismal.  White and other executives in the company had gains of more than $14 million through the sale of stock options during this time. 

White is expected to begin serving his sentence in August at the Pleasant Valley State Prison and Detention Spa after returning from a mediteranean cruise.  "Frankly, I need to slim down a bit anyways, and I hear they have a fantastic Atkins program," he said. "We were going to be renovating the house in Atherton in August anyways."   White has also been sentenced to perform more than 300 minutes of community service raking leaves at former rival Oracle CEO Larry Ellison's 45 acre Woodside estate. 

The sentence, which fell short of the maximum ten year imprisonment and $1 million, was considered controversial.  "It shows just how harsh justice can be for a CEO in this country," said former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling.  "I can't believe he won't get desert," commented former WorldCom CEO Bernie Ebbers. 

In separate news, it was also announced this week that the notorious "Buffalo Spammer" Howard Carmack has been sentenced to a seven year jail term for sending out bulk email messages. This was in addition to a previous $16 million civil settlement awarded to Earthlink.  "I guess I shoulda stuck to securities fraud," Carmack said.

About the author
Nate Orenstam is a world-class Java database programmer.  He helped design the JDBC specification and is responsible for several elegantly designed but totally impractical APIs.