Researcher Finds Phony Credentials for Eight Executives

My dear friend and mentor, convicted felon-turned-fraud fighter Barry Minkow has a message for deceitful directors and officers of public companies: If you lie about your resume, past experience, and qualifications for your present job and such lies show up in SEC filings, he will find out about it and expose you to investors and regulators.

Minkow and I believe that if you lie about your educational background, you are capable of lying about anything else, too. Investors require honesty from the fiduciaries running their companies. If Barry Minkow can find false credentials in corporate America where company gatekeepers have failed, what other more devastating internal control failures exist that we do not know of?

According to a Wall Street Journal article by Keith Winstein, a survey of 358 senior executives and directors at 53 publicly traded companies conducted by Barry Minkow and his private investigation firm, the Fraud Discovery Institute (FDI), found at least seven instances of claims that individuals had academic degrees they don't have. In other words, about one of seven companies surveyed by FDI has directors and key executives that misrepresented their credentials.

Those individuals touting phony credentials are:

Trimble Navigation Limited (NASDAQ: TRMB): Dennis Workman
Cabot Microelectronics Corp (NASDAQ: CCMP): James DeHoniesto
Tetra Tech Inc. (NYSE: TTEK): Sam Box
Knight Capital Group Inc. (NASDAQ: NITE): Robert Lazarowitz
Helix Energy Solutions (NYSE: HLX): Owen Krantz
Life Partners Holdings (NASDAQ: LPHI): Harold Rafuse
PepsiAmericas (NYSE: PAS): Kenneth Keiser

You can read FDI’s background reports on those individuals above here.

A day later, Barry Minkow exposed yet another corporate executive who touted phony credentials. According to an article in Bloomberg News, written by Beth Jinks, the latest executive to get busted by Minkow for phony credentials is MGM Mirage (NYSE: MGM) Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Terry Lanni:

Asked by news organizations if he graduated with a master of business administration degree at the University of Southern California, as his company biography says, Lanni replied that he has an honorary MBA from the school. James Grant, a university spokesman, said Lanni had taken courses toward an MBA but wasn’t granted the degree. Grant said he couldn’t verify that the school gave him an honorary degree.

“If it needs to be corrected, it will be corrected,” Lanni said in today’s interview when asked about his biography.

Lanni promptly announced his retirement. Good riddance.

As a convicted felon, I have learned that where there is smoke there is usually fire. In a series of future blog posts, I will carefully examine financial disclosures by companies that seem unable or unwilling to screen their executive’s and director’s backgrounds.

To be continued.

Written by:

Sam E. Antar (former Crazy Eddie CFO and a convicted felon)

Disclosure

I am not short or long any of the companies named in this blog post. However, Barry Minkow may have a short position in the companies mentioned in this blog post.

Over a year ago, I provided funds to Fraud Discovery Institute (FDI) to help pay costs of its investigations, though I had no control over any monies spent. I am not an owner, manager, employee, or consultant of Minkow or FDI and I do not receive any compensation from them.

Comments

[jimmy46:]

This it great,

And I totally agree with you that a person who LIES about one thing

WILL LIE ABOUT OTHER THINGS.

2008 Nov 17 01:38 PM

[Mowog:]

Outstanding!

2008 Nov 18 03:11 AM

[Sam E. Antar:]

Thank you for your input.

2008 Nov 18 02:26 PM

[Tru Alpha:]

the article mistakenly refers to Dr. Harold Rafuse as "Mr.", failing to mention that despite the mistake regarding his degree from Temple, he does in fact have a BBA, MBA and PHD.

The author of the article made the same mistake that the people who reported Dr. Rafuse's credentials made.

2008 Nov 26 05:15 PM

[igggy:]

An interesting wikipedia page about Hamilton University where the guy got his PhD:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
what a joke!


On Nov 26 05:15 PM Tru Alpha wrote:

> the article mistakenly refers to Dr. Harold Rafuse as "Mr.", failing
> to mention that despite the mistake regarding his degree from Temple,
> he does in fact have a BBA, MBA and PHD.
>
> The author of the article made the same mistake that the people who
> reported Dr. Rafuse's credentials made.

Jan 14 08:22 PM

[kotika98:]

if we believe the cockroach theory, as in someone who lied once about something insignificant then they are likely lying about important things, why should we trust you? Besides, unlike those phony resumes your own transgression is much more serious, unless you are right that they smth more serious to hide.

More to the point, although lying and cheating are two of the original sins, they are not necessarily crimes according to the law. For example, lying to your wife about who you spent the night with is not a crime. In many cases cheating of various kinds is not criminal either, unless money is involved. In many such cases, there are no consequences even under civil law. This is how Bush or Clinton think they can get away with some of their behaviors - if it aint fraud it is ok. Personally, i dont endorse this point of view, but the culture in general is very permissive about these things.

Mar 05 09:04 AM

[laguz:]

Can anyone tell me why Peterson would use the label Patterson/UTI? When I was younger my father was involved in a lot of future plans and his name was Patterson...he was also given a grant to research...hey...maybe I can claim it???LOL

Mar 31 01:33 PM