SAN DIEGO (CN) - Two more former top executives at Peregrine Systems were sentenced to multiyear prison terms Wednesday for securities fraud and conspiracy. The software company's former CFO Matthew Gless was sentenced to 5 years and 3 months, and its former executive vice president Douglas Powanda to 6 years and six months. Peregrine's former CEO Stephen Parker Gardner was sentenced last week to 8 years in prison.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Whelan said he did not sentence Gless or Powanda to the maximum terms of 15 years because they cooperated with authorities.
Here is Courthouse News' Dec. 12 story on CEO Gardner's sentencing.
Peregrine Systems Ex-CEO Gets 8 Years
SAN DIEGO (CN) - Peregrine Systems former CEO Stephen Parker Gardner was sentenced Thursday to 8 years and 1 month in prison for conspiracy, securities fraud and obstructing justice. Gardner, who defrauded shareholders of the software firm from 1999 to 2002, also was ordered to pay more than $1.3 million in restitution.
Gardner and his coconspirators juggled the books to meet Wall Street's expectations, thereby inflating the price of Peregrine stock. He also gave false testimony to the SEC, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
Peregrine was a hot stock from 1997 until May 2002, when the book juggling came to light. The stock price collapsed, Peregrine declared bankruptcy and eventually was sold to Hewlett-Packard. Shareholders lost $3 billion. Along the way, Gardner paid himself annual bonuses, sometimes of more than $1 million, prosecutors say.
Gardner, 55, lives in Maine.
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