National Scene Magazine April 2010 National News Article

National Scene Magazine April 2010 National News Article

http://www.nationalscenemagazine.com/html/other_news.html


Why Do People in Power Continue to Defraud the Public?

Charles W. McCall, Former McKessonHBOC Chairman, Sentenced to 10 Years for Fraud

Written by: Karen Benardello


Charles W. McCall, the former McKessonHBOC Chairman, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on March 5 in San Francisco for his four securities fraud convictions and one circumventing internal accounting controls at a public company conviction. The news was officially announced by First Assistant United States Attorney David L. Anderson.

According to information released on the San Francisco section of the FBI’s website, http://sanfrancisco.fbi.gov/index.html, McCall was convicted on November 19 last year. The jury found that the Delray Beach, Florida resident had falsely inflated the publicly reported revenues of HBO & Company of Alpharetta, Ga. (HBOC), and McKessonHBOC of San Francisco between December 1997 and April 1999.

U.S. District Court Judge William H. Alsup sentenced McCall to serve 120 months for each securities fraud count and 60 months for the circumventing internal accounting controls count. The sentences will be served concurrently. Judge Alsup also ordered McCall to surrender to the United States Marshal on March 31 at noon.

The 10-year sentence seems lenient, considering that expert testimony determined McCall’s investors collectively lost more than $8.6 billion in one day. In a world following Bernie Madoff, investment schemers and Ponzi scammers need to know that their actions will be punished. However, Judge Alsup did the right thing by denying McCall bail pending appeal-if his victims have to suffer due to their financial losses, then McCall shouldn’t have lived in luxury until he surrendered to the U.S. Marshal.