Former CA chairman and chief executive Sanjay
Kumar and another CA executive obstructed justice by attempting to erase
evidence from computers after the federal government began investigating
accounting fraud at the software company, prosecutors say in a letter to
defense attorneys.
The letter -- served earlier this month to lawyers for Kumar and Stephen
Richards, CA's former head of worldwide sales -- indicates the government
intends to call two experts in computer forensics to testify that the
executives erased data. .gif)
Prosecutors
expect PriceWaterhouseCoopers computer forensics
specialist David Burg to show that Kumar reformatted his hard drive by
installing the Linux operating system, after CA directed employees to
preserve relevant evidence, according to the letter.
Burg also will testify that a file directory called "incinerate"
was created on Richards' hard drive shortly after he received a subpoena
from the Securities and Exchange Commission to testify, the letter said.
Burg will identify recovered e-mails, some of which had been deleted, the
notice said.
The former executives' lawyers separately called the charges baseless,
noting the accusations came 18 months after the September 2004 indictment.
The lawyers said their clients look forward to fighting the allegations in
court.
"The government for the first time reaches to raise these inflammatory
allegations," said David Zornow, Richards'
attorney.
Jack Cooney, Kumar's attorney, said, "The prosecution is still trying
to find some evidence that Mr. Kumar actually committed a crime here."
The case goes to trial in U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of
New York on April 24. If convicted of obstruction of justice, each former executive
faces a maximum of five years in prison.
The executives also face charges of securities fraud conspiracy in the
$2.2-billion accounting fraud scandal, in which executives are accused of
backdating sales receipts to meet sales goals. If convicted on all counts,
Kumar and Richards each face 100 years in prison.
Prosecutors would have to prove that Kumar and Richards deliberately tried
to eliminate evidence.
"If the government can show that on day one you were told to 'preserve
the evidence' and on day two you do something to mask, delete, hide, do
something about that evidence, that's evidence of obstruction of
justice," said a white-collar criminal defense lawyer who asked not to
be named because he's not involved in this case.
Mark Lanterman, chief executive and
chief technology officer of Computer Forensics Services in Minnetonka, Minn.,
said most investigators can track attempts to delete data.
"Even though the computer user may be successful in destroying the
content of that file," Lanterman said, "they're not successful
typically in destroying all of the footprints that outline his usage, that
outline the action he or she took to cover his trails.
"Here's a company that prides itself as a leading computer security
company, and you're going to have someone delete files and think he's not
going to get caught," he said. "If it's true, it's a great
illustration of arrogance."
Robert Nardoza, spokesman for the U.S. Department
of Justice for the Eastern District of New York, had no comment. CA spokeswoman
Jennifer Hallahan also had no comment.
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