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Options Plea Deal: Lawyer to be Jailed, Pay $52M
The former top lawyer at software maker Comverse Technology Inc. was sentenced today to a year and a day in jail and ordered to pay $52 million for his role in a stock options backdating scheme.
A federal district court judge in Brooklyn imposed this sentence on William Sorin in an agreed plea deal in a fraud conspiracy, reports Reuters. Sorin and other company executives allegedly earned millions in profits by altering grant dates of stock options between 1998 and 2002, boosting the gains they and other favored employees obtained.
Sorin apparently is the first corporate executive to be sentenced for options-related misconduct in a series of ongoing prosecutions over the practice.
