Former Brocade Communications Systems CEO Gregory Reyes is now facing a retrial, six months after the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned his conviction for options backdating, Bloomberg reports.
Reyes was convicted of conspiracy and fraud in August 2007 for backdating employee stock options at Brocade. He was sentenced to 21 months in prison and ordered to pay a $15 million fine. The Ninth Circuit reversed the conviction last year, throwing out 10 counts of illegal backdating on account of prosecutorial misconduct.
The retrial, which is taking place in San Francisco, is expected to last several weeks. During his opening statement, Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Reeves emphasized that Reyes himself received backdated options. Reeves said Reyes undertook the scheme in order to “pad his own pocket,” and that while he never cashed in on the options, Reyes granted millions of dollars in the stock bonuses to himself and his employees without disclosing the expense to shareholders.
The last trial was thrown out do to prosecutorial misconduct by Adam Reeves. Reyes’ now faces a new trial and again prosecution is Adam Reeves. Why do we think we can trust him to uphold the truth in this case? Why isn’t Reeves being charged with fraud?
“Pad his own pocket”? Reeves needs to get his facts strait before making comments like this to a jury. He may get called out for prosecutorial misconduct all over again?
I believe this whole gregory reyes brocade situation is pretty unfair, I mean backdating is not a crime unless is kept as a secret and it wasn-t the case.