Former CA CEO gets 12 years for fraud, obstruction

Faced with life in prison for securities fraud and obstruction of justice, Sanjay Kumar got off easy. The former CEO of Computer Associates was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison and an $8 million fine, the Times reports.

Kumar engaged in a $2.2 billion accounting fraud, inflating the company's profits in 1999 and 2000, lying to investigators and even trying to bribe a potential witness to the tune of $3.7 million.

“This shocked the conscience of this court, and I dare believe it shocked the conscience of any reasonable person,” Federal Judge I. Leo Glasser said.

What did CA and Kumar do? Little things like the "35-day month," where sales made in one quarter were booked to the previous quarter, thus driving up the stock price as it looked to Wall Street that CA was making money hand over fist.

It was really the obstructionist behavior like offering a whopping bribe and lying to the FBI that earned Kumar his stiff sentence.

House has more questions for Hurd

The House subcommittee that held hearing on HP spying in September sent a set of questions to CEO Mark Hurd that focus on his under, the Times says. HP released one set of questions and Hurd's answers (PDF). Another set of responses has not been released.

At issue is Hurd's recollection that at a July 2005 someone talked about getting personal phone information from the Web. In reponse to a question about that meeting, Hurd wrote:

“I recall only the remark being made by someone at some time and thinking there must be some Web site with the information."