Former Gateway CEO, two others charged with fraud
Gateway's former chief executive, Jeff Weitzen, and two of its other former executives were charged with fraud Thursday by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which alleged the parties engaged in manipulating earnings results to meet Wall Street expectations.
John Todd, former chief financial officer, and Robert Manza, former controller, also were charged with fraud.
The SEC announcement caps an investigation that began in late 2000. The highly touted Weitzen and Todd were brought in to aid the troubled company in the late 1990s.
"The former Gateway executives the commission charges today were preoccupied with meeting analysts' expectations, to the extent that they fraudulently reverse-engineered Gateway's financial results to do so," Randall Lee, regional director of the SEC's Pacific Regional Office, said in a statement. "This action also demonstrates the commission's resolve to prosecute those executives, including CEOs, who mislead investors about the underlying health and business prospects of their companies."
