Federal Criminal Defense Blog : Georgia Federal Criminal Defense Lawyer & Attorney : Gillen Withers & Lake Law Firm : White Collar Crime, RICO, Trial : Atlanta, Savannah, GA

Westar Energy, the largest electrical utility in the State of Kansas, announced last week that it will pay former Chief Executive Officer, President and Chairman of the Board, David Wittig $36 million as an arbitration settlement relating to Wittig's compensation contract, as well as $3.1 million in attorney's fees and $2.7 million in stock compensation, according to the Topeka Capital-Journal. Westar's settlement with Wittig follows its settlement in the Spring with its former Vice President of Corporate Strategy, Douglas Lake for $21 million in unpaid compensation and $5.3 million in legal fees. Wittig and Lake claimed Westar violated their employment contracts by terminating them prematurely.

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The compensation for legal fees was for Wittig's and Lake's defense of a criminal prosecution. In 2003, the men were charged in the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas with conspiracy, circumventing internal accounting controls and falsifying books and records, honest services fraud, wire fraud, submitting false statements and engaging in monetary transactions derived from an unlawful activity. Their first trial ended in a mistrial in 2004 after the jury could not reach a verdict. They were convicted at their second trial in 2005, but the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed their convictions last year following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision regarding honest services fraud in U.S. v. Skilling.

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Today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution has an article on the nine pardons announced by the White House on Friday--the first pardons issued by President Obama. The pardons related to a variety of offenses dating all the way back to 1960. Only recipient appears to have been charged with an alleged federal, "white collar" crime--Laurens Dorsey, of Syracuse, New York, sentenced in 1998 to five years of probation and $71,000 in restitution for conspiracy to defraud by making false statements to the Food and Drug Administration

78 year-old George B. Hamlet of Georgia, unlike his prevaricating namesake, has allegedly taken decisive action to knock off a bank in Knoxville, Tennessee, according to an article at Knoxvillenews.com. Mr. Hamlet allegedly brandished a  weapon, jumped on the counter at First Tennessee Bank in Knoxville, and began collecting money from the tellers. Mr. Hamlet was stopped by a security guard as he was leaving the bank, and has been charged with one count of bank robbery in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee.

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As reported by Law.com, Bruce Karatz, Chief Executive Officers of KB Home, a home construction corporation based in Los Angeles, California, was indicted in the action of U.S. v. Nicholas, 2:09-cr-00203-ODW (C.D.Ca. 2009), on 20 counts of fraud for defrauding the company and its shareholders of millions of dollars in undisclosed backdated stock option over a period of seven years, and concealing the fraud from KB Home's  directors, compensation committee and shareholders. Karatz's trial in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California is scheduled to begin on February 23.

Karatz's attorneys have requested a hearing regarding whether prosecutorial misconduct has tainted the government's case against Karatz. Karatz contends that two witnesses for the government--James Johnson, former Chairman of the Board of Directors' Compensation Committee for KB Home, and Gary Ray, former Vice President of Human Resources--initially believed that the stock options grant practice was lawful, but changed their position following contacts with the prosecution. Karatz's lawyers want to examine Johnson regarding why he denied allegedly defending KB Home's option granting process during an internal investigation by the company's outside counsel in his statements to prosecutors. 

The defense also wants to question Ray, who has pled guilty to obstruction of justice and is cooperating with the government, regarding why he had allegedly previously maintained that the process was "lawful and proper." Following is a link to

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Karatz's motion is based on an order in December by U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney in the action of U.S. v. Nicholas, SACR 08-00139 CJC (C.D.Ca. 2008), another backdating case, in which the Court dismissed the government's indictment against co-founder of Broadcom Corp., Henry Nicholas, and former Broadcom Chief Financial Officer William Ruehle, blasting the prosecution for "distorting the truth-finding process" by intimidating and improperly influencing key witnesses. Karatz also relies on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' overturning last August of the conviction of former Chief Executive Officer for Brocade Communication Systems, Inc., Gregory Reyes, for backdating based on false statements by the prosecution in closing arguments that Brocade's finance department didn't know about backdating. A hearing on Karatz's motion has been scheduled for February 8.

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