When it comes to organizing and running a company, the CEO is the head honcho. They’re responsible for overseeing and directing most of the companies operations, and are expected to be great leaders that are extremely hardworking. But as many of us know, CEOs can often abuse their powers, as they use their wealth and influence to bend the rules. Sometimes this leads them to getting arrested, and even serving some time behind bars. Here we will take a look at a list of ten prominent CEOs that have a criminal record.
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10. Richard Scrushy
Richard Scrushy is an American businessman that founded the HealthSouth Corporation, a large operator of inpatient rehabilitation facilities and hospitals that operate throughout the United States. They are one of the largest in the business, seeing billions of dollars in revenue each year, but Scrushy is no stranger to criminal activities. Over the course of his career, Scrushy committed almost every white collar crime out there: bribery, fraud, money laundering, conspiracy, you name it. He was indicted for multiple charges back in 2003, but was eventually acquitted. Then in 2005 he was charged with over 30 counts of extortion, money laundering, bribery, obstruction of justice, and racketeering. After a lengthy court case, Scrushy was sentences to six years and ten months in prison.
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9. Martin L. Grass
Martin L. Grass was the former CEO of Rite-Aid and the son of the companies founder, who managed to ruin his families name. After a brief four-year career as CEO of the company, Grass was forced to resign after growing concerns from within the company. Then in 2002 he was indicted for cooking the books, fraud, deceit, and conspiracy. Two years later he plead guilty to his charges and was forced to serve eight years in jail, fined $500,000 dollars, and had to forfeit his $3 million dollar salary.
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8. Bernard Ebbers
Bernard Ebbers is a Candian businessman that formed the WorldCom telecommunications company and served as their CEO for some time. Back in 2000, WorldCom was set to merge with Sprint, however the deal fell through. Suddenly, WorldCom’s stocks began to fall, so what did Bernard do? Did he work hard to come up with practical solutions for his company? Not quite. Instead he fiddled with the companies accounting books, rearranging some $11 billion dollars to make it appear that the company was financially sound. Auditors found out eventually, and in 2005 he was convicted on seven counts of filing false reports, fraud, conspiracy, and many other crimes. He is now serving a 25-year prison sentence in jail.
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7. Dennis Kozlowski
Dennis Kozlowski was the former CEO of Tyco International, and he didn’t like to play by the rules. He was basically your stereotypical rich and corrupt CEO, as he often liked to give himself and others huge bonuses, spent company money on frivolous purchases (large parties, cars, etc.), and more. In 2005 he was found quilty for purchasing $14.72 million dollars of artwork with company money, giving $81 million dollars in unauthorized bonuses, and illegally using company funds. He was arrested and sent to prison to serve at least an eight year and four month sentence.
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6. Joseph Nacchio
Joseph Nacho served as the CEO and the chairman of the board for Qwest, a large telecommunications company before he was arrested and sent to prison. Nacchio illegally ran up his companies stock to make a profit, cooked the books, and lied about the financial state of his company. He was sentenced to six years in prison in 2007, and had to pay fines of $19 million dollars.
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5. Walter Forbes
Walter Forbes was the CEO of his marketing company Comp-U-Card International for many years, before the company merged with Hospitality Franchise Systems to form his new company, Cendant. The merger deal went through initially, but after Cendant was created, it was found that Forbes inaccurately reported and lied about the financial strength of Comp-U-Card by reporting $500 million dollars in profits that never existed. In 2002 he was indicted for fraud and other charges, and after many lengthy court appearances and a few appeals, he was eventually sentenced to 12 years in Federal Prison and was fined over $3 billion dollars.
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4. John Rigas
John Rigas was the co-founder and former CEO of the cable company known as Adelphia. For a while, everything seemed fine with the company, but in 2002 he was removed from the company for almost every type of fraud imaginable. It turns out that Rigas, and six others that were also indicted, used company money to pay for personal expenses in addition to covering up a few billion dollars in outstanding loans. His company would eventually go bankrupt, and he is now serving 15 years in prison for his wrong doings.
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3. Sanjay Kumar
Sanjay Kumar joined the company known as Computer Associates International in 1987, and worked his way up the ranks to eventually become its CEO in 2000. One would think that he would hold on to that position for as long as possible, given how long it took him to get there, but that’s far from the case. It was eventually found out that he cooked the companies books to the tune of some $2.2 billion dollars. He escaped the law for a number of years, but in 2006 he was indicted for fraud and obstruction of justice and was sentenced to serve 12 years in prison.
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2. Martha Stewart
Martha Stewart is one of the more well-known CEOs that has a criminal record, as her wrongdoings were highly publicized. Martha was the CEO of her own company, the Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, however her crimes did not relate to her company. Rather in 2001 she was tipped by her friend, Samuel Waksal the CEO of ImClone Systems, that one of his companies drugs was denied approval from the FDA. Martha immediately sold all her shares in that company, effectively committing insider trading. She was eventual indicted for perjury and was sentenced to five months in prison and two years of probation back in 2004.
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1. Jeffery Skilling
Jeffery Skilling is another notorious CEO that also has criminal records. He was the former CEO of Enron, and as many already know, Enron was one of the biggest businesses scandals in recent times. The case of Enron is one that involves nearly every white collar crime out there. He was the CEO during the high of the Enron scandal, assisting the company to hide their outstanding debts. He was eventually found guilty of conspiracy, making false statements to auditors, and fraud and was sentenced to 24 years and four months in prison.
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