Finally Making Most Of The Cheaters Pay

A few years back Time Warner acquired AOL in a
blockbuster deal that turned fairly sour shortly after
it happened. It seemed that AOL executives had
artificially inflated the actual value of their companies
stock.

The new Time Warner stock took a severe beating.
The most famous of those to get hosed was the
"Mouth of the South" Ted Turner, who held all his
money in Time Warner stock. The deal cost Turner
about 2 billion dollars. He managed to hang on to another
billion, but he wasn't a happy camper.

As time unfolded we found that AOL was guilty of
any number of violations and exceptionally sneaky
business practices. Most of this was cataloged in
a Washington Post article by a reporter whose name
I can't remember at the moment.

My apologies to the reporter.

The thing that I have been curiuos about for some
time is that the chief executive of AOL, Steve Case;
the guy who ran the company and made the deal with
Time Warner, has never been charged with fraud. He
lives quietly in Virginia, apparently immune from the
mess he created, or at the very least, helped create.

Most of the blame for the brouhaha is being laid at
the feet of the financial officers of the company, and
the Securities and Exchange Commission is collecting
fines from them and some members of the business
affairs unit.

As far as I can tell there are no plans to prosecute
Case for one of the biggest stock frauds in history.

After all, he was only running the company, and like
his predecessor at Enron, he didn't understand all the
intricacies of high finance.

The evidence laid out in that Washington Post article
years ago begs to differ, and if Martha Stewart had to
spend time in the hoosegow for shading the truth about
forty grand, Case needs to spend more than a few years
busting rocks for his part in a multi-billion dollar fraud.

Either that, or make him give up some of his hundreds
of millions.

Or better yet, make him shovel out the stables at Ted
Turners stables for the rest of his life.

From the big saddle,

Jim Whelan
The Chairman of the Board

P.S. Call the agency that never rests until you start
putting some money in your pocket. Contact us at:
thejamesrwhelanagency.com, or 206 407 3124.