A quick correction:
We mentioned yesterday how nice a lady Frank DiPascali’s sister was for putting her house up for bail. We’re sure she is very nice but the judge wasn’t convinced that DiPascali wouldn’t bolt so he didn’t let him out on bail regardless of the agreement prosecutors had with defense attorneys.
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Guess the Tab: E&Y Edition
Unfortunately our source didn’t know the final tab on this particular fiesta so we’ll put out for you to speculate.
Possibly a Bacardi bottle on the far left and maybe that’s Glenfiddich, second from the left, so we’re not talking top shelf but it’s also not that garbage that gets served out of the well. Plus, the receipt seems far too long for the number of bottle shown. Leave your best guess in the comments.
‘Swashbuckling Industrialist’ Tom Petters Is Going to be Responsible for Putting Senior Citizens on the Street
For those of you that were maybe developing a soft spot for Tom Petters because, among other things, his own lawyer doesn’t think too much of him, the latest testimony in TP’s trial should help squash your sympathy.
Janet Leck, a 79 year old widow, was convinced by Frank Vennes, Jr. — an evangelist who “steered unwitting investors to [Petters]” — to invest her money with Tom Petters. At one point Vennes, apparently having reconnected with the Almighty, told Leck that he was ending his business relationship with TP because of ‘things he was seeing in Mr. Petters’ personal life’ and was returning her money.
Now, one could assume that Vennes was getting the creeps from Petters because either: 1) he realized that Petters was a complete man-child that couldn’t finish a copy of Go Dog Go! or 2) typical hooker/llelo chicanery.
Two years after dumping Petters for his sinful ways, Vennes decided redemption was in order (or, most likely, he just missed the hookers) because he went back to TP and got the Lecks to invest with him again:
She re-mortgaged her home and drew out $190,000 in equity to invest with Petters, she said. Leck said she relied on the $3,400 monthly payments from that loan for living expenses until September 2008, when authorities raided Petters’ home and business looking for evidence that he was running an alleged $3.5 billion Ponzi scheme.
Now, unless she can restructure her mortgage, Leck said, “I’m looking at foreclosure. …I will move from my home of 30 years.”
In other overwhelmingly convincing testimony, investment banker Michael Liss described Petters, “as a ‘swashbuckling industrialist’ who had an arsenal of ‘ridiculous’ excuses for not paying his debts on time.”
Ridiculous excuses like, “Do you treat your other swashbuckling industrialist clients this way?” or “I’m busy ripping off senior citizens. Do you mind?” OR “My ass is going to end up in dumpster any second, sorta busy.”
Petters trial: Retired widow fears losing her home [Minneapolis Star-Tribune]
Bean Counter Obituary: Eli Mason, 1920-2009
Eli Mason, a driving force for the independence of accountants and an outspoken critic of large accounting firms, died last week at the age of 88.
He was a CPA for more than 60 years, starting his own firm in 1946 with two clients. He served on the NYS Board for Public Accountancy for ten years, including two as the chair. He was also the President of the NYS Society of CPA’s for 1972-1973.
According to the New York Times obituary:
Mr. Mason went to the business school of the City College of New York, where he studied accounting with Emanuel Saxe, a distinguished professor and one of the accounting world’s stars at the time. He graduated in 1940 and was a lifelong supporter of the college, now Baruch College of the City University of New York , where he endowed a chair for accounting in 1992 and financed the restoration of the school’s biggest auditorium, now called Mason Hall.
More, after the jump
Mr. Mason was taking on the big firms before most of us were born:
In 1979, he helped found the National Conference of C.P.A. Practitioners, which consisted of 1,500 small firms, and became one of the profession’s most vocal critics of the big accounting firms, then known as the Big Eight. In particular he resented the practice he referred to as lowballing, or aggressively cutting prices, sometimes below cost, to attract new clients.
He also saw the danger of firms offering consulting services and the consolidation of the large firms when the mergers began in the 1980s:
He also spoke against the industry’s mergers in the 1980s, which reduced the number of major firms to five, and he was critical of large firms that offered consulting services as well, fearing this would erode their independence from their clients. Many of his fears turned out to be justified later when the accounting scandals of Enron and WorldCom highlighted the cozy relationship between some of the world’s top accounting firms and the companies they were supposed to audit. Arthur Andersen was one, having been Enron’s accounting firm.
Mr. Mason was known as an accounting purist and earned the nickname “the conscience of the profession”, something we could certainly use more of. Follow this link to read an interview he did with the CPA Journal in 1999. He will be missed and our condolences go out to his family.
Eli Mason, 88, Outspoken Accountant, Is Dead [New York Times]