Cendant ex-chairman found guilty

0 Comments | USA TODAY, November, 2006 | by Greg Farrell

The longest-running white-collar-criminal saga of the past decade finally came to a close Tuesday in Bridgeport, Conn., where a jury found former Cendant chairman Walter Forbes guilty of conspiracy in the $252 million overstatement of his company's earnings. The fraud, exposed in April 1998, precipitated one of the biggest sell-offs in the history of Wall Street, chopping Cendant's market capitalization by 50%, or $14 billion, in one furious day of trading.

Prior to Enron, it was considered one of the largest accounting frauds ever perpetrated on investors in modern times. The victory proved sweet for federal prosecutors from New Jersey, who have been pursuing Forbes for eight years. Two previous efforts to convict Forbes for his role in the Cendant fraud ended in mistrials,...