ALEXANDRIA, Va.(AP)
A one-time dot-com billionaire was convicted Thursday of stock
fraud and obstruction of justice after a court finding that he
deceived investors in his Las Vegas software company.
Charles E. "Junior" Johnson was chief executive of
PurchasePro Inc., a software company that went bankrupt as the
dot-com bubble burst in 2001.
U.S. District Judge Walter Kelley found Johnson guilty on all
counts after concluding he schemed to falsely inflate his
company's revenue in the first three months of 2001.
The case has been under investigation for six years and resulted
in convictions of six other PurchasePro executives.
Two midlevel executives at AOL, which had a marketing
partnership with PurchasePro, were acquitted at an earlier
trial.
Johnson compounded his problems by trying to alter documents
used at his trial, which resulted in an additional charge of
obstruction of justice.
Johnson's attorney, Yale Galanter, said he found it
troubling that the judge relied in his ruling on testimony from
other PurchasePro executives who had acknowledged lying to
investigators.
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