Legal News

Gemstar CEO charged with destroying documents

By Jason Siegel

Henry C. Yuen, the former chairman and chief executive of Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc., was indicted on Tuesday on a felony charge of obstructing a Securities & Exchange Commission investigation.

According to the new charges, brought by federal prosecutors in the Central District of California, Yuen allegedly deleted e-mails and Gemstar corporate documents that were requested as part of a subpoena in the SEC investigation. The SEC had been looking into accounting irregularities at Gemstar from 1999 through 2002.

The day he was scheduled to testify before the SEC, in March 2003, Yuen used a software program to block efforts to recover those e-mails and documents.

He faces a maximum of five years in federal prison.

Yuen?s whereabouts are unknown, according to prosecutors.

In 2006, U.S. District Judge John Walter, for the Central District of California, rejected a plea agreement between federal prosecutors and Yuen to settle previous charges alleging similar facts. Walter and the SEC criticized that agreement, in which Yuen would have faced no prison time, as too lenient.

In March, a federal judge in the Central District of California ruled that a $29.5 million severance package previous frozen by the SEC under a provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act during its investigation be returned to the company.

-- Amanda Bronstad

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on May 14, 2008 (boomark / email).