Former CA Exec Kumar Pleads Guilty to Fraud Charges

Updated: The feds finally land the big fish in the long-running CA accounting scandal dating back to 2004.

Sanjay Kumar, former head of IT management firm CA, pled guilty April 24 to a number of financial fraud charges resulting from a $2.2 billion corporate accounting scandal that rocked the company in 2004.

Kumar pled guilty to charges of obstruction of justice and securities fraud at the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, N.Y. CA declined to comment.

Kumars co-defendant, Stephen Richards, his former top sales executive at the IT management concern based in Islandia, N.Y, also pled guilty to a number of charges in the case.

Click here to read about the lengths that CAs gone to try to shed its past.

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Both were indicted in September 2004 on charges involving allegedly cooking the books of the ailing company to make it appear as though it was meeting its financial goals.

But behind closed doors, Kumar and Richards were, as their guilty pleas of April 24 indicate, fabricating financial results by backdating contracts, according to evidence thats part of the case. In one alleged instance, Kumar is said to have personally backdated a contract, flying to Paris to do so, then destroying the potential evidence.

What investigators at the time ultimately uncovered at CA was widespread corruption at the company. In total, the firm had to restate earnings to the tune of $2.2 billion.

When word of the irregularities surfaced in 2004, the company, then known as Computer Associates, of Islandia, N.Y., cleaned house by firing Kumar, Richards and many other executives.

Some of those fired have since pleaded guilty to securities fraud charges and were set to testify against Kumar.

Read here about how CA has fared since the scandal broke.

The former executives to plead guilty to charges related to the case include Stephen Woghin, CAs former general counsel; Ira Zar, a former chief financial officer; and two finance vice presidents, David Kaplan and David Rivard.

Yet the big fish, Kumar, a protege of Computer Associates founder Charles Wang, remained unsnared until now.

Editors Note: This story was updated to confirm the reported information.

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