Top NZ executive faces fraud charges in US

By PETER GRIFFIN

A high-flying New Zealand IT executive faces a legal fight to clear his name after being charged with 10 counts of securities fraud, conspiracy and obstruction of justice in the US.

Stephen Richards, 39, was until April the executive vice-president of sales at Computer Associates - one of the biggest software companies in the world.

Now Richards, former boss Sanjay Kumar and several other executives have been accused of fraudulently reporting company revenue.

Richards ran CA's New Zealand operating in the nineties before climbing through the company ranks first in Australia.

In April 2002, the Herald caught up with Richards at a CA world conference in Florida, where he expressed his pride at having made it in corporate America as an outsider.

Now a 45-page indictment paints Richards as a key conspirator in a scheme that has come to be known as the "35-day month".

"The defendants Sanjay Kumar and Stephen Richards instructed CA sales managers and salespeople to negotiate and finalise additional licence agreements, which were backdated to disguise the fact that the agreements had been finalised after the end of the fiscal quarter," indictment documents read.

Richards and Kumar have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

It is also alleged that Richards, giving evidence as part of an SEC investigation, "gave knowingly and willingly false testimony in an attempt to conceal the existence of the 35-day month practice and his involvement in it".

* The indictment is available online here.