Wow, people call our industry shady....

[SykkBoy]

A one-time dot-com billionaire not only cheated investors at his now-defunct software firm, he also tried to defraud a federal court at his trial last year by pushing his lawyer to introduce phony e-mails as evidence, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Charles E. "Junior" Johnson, 46, whose Las Vegas-based tech company PurchasePro became embroiled in an accounting scandal with AOL in 2001, went on trial again in U.S. District Court on charges including stock fraud, conspiracy and witness tampering. And prosecutors added a surprise new charge: obstruction of justice, for allegedly urging his high-profile defense attorney to use bogus e-mails in the cross-examination of a government witness.

Johnson was one of four executives, including two midlevel execs from AOL, who went on trial last year for the alleged stock fraud. But midway through the trial, U.S. District Judge Walter Kelley declared a mistrial in Johnson's case for reasons that had remained under seal until Tuesday.

Prosecutors did not reveal all the details of the alleged trial obstruction, but Johnson's former lawyer, Preston Burton, is expected to testify for the government against Johnson.

Burton is perhaps best known as one of the lawyers who represented Monica Lewinsky during the President Clinton impeachment investigation. He also represented confessed spy Robert Hanssen. More recently, Burton has represented alleged Washington madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey. Burton declined comment Tuesday.

Johnson's current attorney, Yale Galanter, did not address the obstruction of justice charge in his opening statement Tuesday. He declined comment outside of court.

At last year's trial, the other three defendants -- all of whom were acquitted -- frequently pointed their fingers at Johnson as the driving force behind the accounting conspiracy.

In the first quarter of 2001, as the dot-com bubble was bursting, PurchasePro was having a hard time selling its core product, a "marketplace license" that supposedly facilitated business-to-business purchases over the Internet.

PurchasePro had advised Wall Street that its revenue would increase significantly in the first quarter of 2001, even though its product was essentially a failure, prosecutor Timothy Belevetz said in his opening statement. PurchasePro was relying heavily on a partnership with AOL to sell the licenses, and AOL resorted to secret side deals and sham accounting to unload the licenses on other businesses.

The conspiracy included efforts to backdate fax machines to make it appear that sales made in April 2001 actually occurred in March. At last year's trial, PurchasePro executives testified to smashing laptops and burying the shards under swimming pools to conceal the fraud, all of which was designed to make it appear that PurchasePro had met its sales goals in the first quarter of 2001.

More...
http://www.lasvegasnow.com/global/story.asp?s=7189888

[GreyWolf]

True SykkBoy2 - tho our industry is peanuts in relation to the overall.

There are obviously a number of players or wannabees in adult who have problematic backgrounds - but this is no different to other industries.

This biz seems to attract an element who would probably be unemployable or unable to operate a normal business in the real world. There are also the relative well-known crooks who have track records for various frauds, drug importation and money laundering blah. It's kinda ironic that some of these people play "corporate games" at a relatively high level and swindle webmasters - and get off with it. ("Adult" was never very good at defending itself from crooks).

BUT ... that sure is peanuts in relation to the massive deceptions, frauds and various crooked games elsewhere

[Iron Fist]

I don't recall anyone in this industry smashing laptops and burying the shards under a swimming pool yet...

[GreyWolf]

Originally Posted by sharphead

I don't recall anyone in this industry smashing laptops and burying the shards under a swimming pool yet...

Na.. never heard of that one yet

Tho by sheer coincidence ended up in a forensics lab where LE had seized a load of computers and where the owners had rigged them to destroy all data in the event of a police raid (they were expecting it?? Wonder why? ). In that case the lab actually recovered all data by interesting methods - they managed to "dig down" on disk platters to extract data at certain time periods - amazing stuff.

[JamesK]

Originally Posted by GreyWolf

Na.. never heard of that one yet

Tho by sheer coincidence ended up in a forensics lab where LE had seized a load of computers and where the owners had rigged them to destroy all data in the event of a police raid (they were expecting it?? Wonder why? ). In that case the lab actually recovered all data by interesting methods - they managed to "dig down" on disk platters to extract data at certain time periods - amazing stuff.

Am I the only one to find it stupid that they smashed the laptops? I would've burned them instead

[aico]

Originally Posted by JamesK

Am I the only one to find it stupid that they smashed the laptops? I would've burned them instead

Stupid people are the ones who get caught, which is why it always seems like they do stupid things, because... they are stupid.

[GreyWolf]

Originally Posted by JamesK

Am I the only one to find it stupid that they smashed the laptops? I would've burned them instead

Nope - they might as well have kept them intact and dumped them in the trash for LE to collect

[Martin3]

Disassemble the hard drive and stick the platters in a blender.

[Pleasurepays]

this industry IS shady. there is no escaping that. there is no other legit industry in the civilized world that robs, steals and cheats as much as this one. there is no other industry where people knowingly get ripped off and still kiss the ass of the guy thats robbing them just because he's buying drinks at a show.

there is no other industry in the world where people come forward and say "hey, Company XYZ, XXX, YYY and ZZZ are stealing from you.. .here's how and here's proof" and everyone calls the messenger an asshole... while those who don't simply do nothing.

this industry (rather the total companies associated with it) statistically represent an immeasurably small % of businesses world wide... i would say that it represents a disproportionate amout of shady business practices by any measurement or standard of business.

[GreyWolf]

Originally Posted by Pleasurepays

this industry IS shady. there is no escaping that. there is no other legit industry in the civilized world that robs, steals and cheats as much as this one. there is no other industry where people knowingly get ripped off and still kiss the ass of the guy thats robbing them just because he's buying drinks at a show.

Agree PP, but there are plenty bigger fish in real world scenarios wearing suits and the face of respectability and ripping off big time. They also cover all levels of industries from the nice polished boardroom table or the office of a leader of a nation downwards and cover almost every aspect of life from construction to legal. Where there is money, the leeches will be there.

Only my , but just can't see any reason to trust anyone with money - that includes "prime" banks, mutual funds or whatever they care to call themselves. People in positions of trust are no better, (tho, there has to be some honest people out there??). Simple example - one occasion we accquired docs read out by a certain country leader to his government. The doc was "supposed" to be dated in the spring of a year at the time of a purported contract, but they faked it up and forgot to tell the typist to pre-date the doc to match a contract date in the spring. So.. she types it up and dates it when she typed it - in October - yet nobody noticed???? This shit was worth many millions, but all totally fraudulent.

We may have fat John, his "Doctor" and his crooked siblings playing board games behind the scenes at iBill and a few other crooked people on a lower level hovering around, but generally it does not appear to be more than mainstream. If it's not one form of swindle it's another - and sometimes can even be called "legal" (often because they have a crooked lawyer).

OK.. we also have the "one for you, two for me" spreadsheets at a few sponsors and they literally got off with millions (and still do) - but, that's not unusual in "real world" scenarios and where they thieve much more funds. If the adult industry has hardcore evidence of fraud - it's easy to let the rope hang out for more evidence - then dump the lot on LE for a raid without any mention on boards. But will they? Doubt it - we can be our own worst enemies.

[DaddyHalbucks]

It's a mystery to me.

[GreyWolf]

Originally Posted by DaddyHalbucks

It's a mystery to me.

Got no doubt all of life is a total mystery to you my man

But... you managed to spam Babylon-X, so at least you got a purpose in life

[SykkBoy]

Originally Posted by Pleasurepays

this industry IS shady. there is no escaping that. there is no other legit industry in the civilized world that robs, steals and cheats as much as this one. there is no other industry where people knowingly get ripped off and still kiss the ass of the guy thats robbing them just because he's buying drinks at a show.

there is no other industry in the world where people come forward and say "hey, Company XYZ, XXX, YYY and ZZZ are stealing from you.. .here's how and here's proof" and everyone calls the messenger an asshole... while those who don't simply do nothing.

this industry (rather the total companies associated with it) statistically represent an immeasurably small % of businesses world wide... i would say that it represents a disproportionate amout of shady business practices by any measurement or standard of business.

It's a vice industry, so there will always be dirtied hands....
that being said, have you ever stepped into the music business? we're all fucking saints compared to the crooks in that business...

[Pleasurepays]

Originally Posted by SykkBoy2

It's a vice industry, so there will always be dirtied hands....
that being said, have you ever stepped into the music business? we're all fucking saints compared to the crooks in that business...

i know the mainstream business world is far from perfect. but i do believe that in the grand scheme of things, the adult industry is in fact shady by any measure... finding other industries that are 'iffy' or shady doesnt change that fact. the adult industry has a reputation that is very much deserved.

[minusonebit]

Yeah, this industry is shady, but we have alot of dumb crooks. Our crooks rarely do anything requiring as much skill as screwing share holders. Regardless of what you think of such people, it does take alot of skill to pull the wool over everyone's eyes like that.

The biggest scams in adult are basically smash and grab jobs. Kiddie shit. People that take money and dont deliver. People who start a processing company using a variety of merchant accounts so that when one goes bad another is right behind it, then they disappear when shit hits the fan. People that start a program and fuck everyone over.

No real skill needed to scam the adult industry, at least on the level of scams that are routinely run around here. Whats more, no one seems to learn anything. People get scammed by one shady processor who bites the dust and then they go to another shady processor that will take a shit soon under the very same conditions for most of the same reasons.