| For Immediate Release Aug 13, 2002 |
Contact: Press Office 202-646-5188 |
Head of Justice Department Corporate Crime Task Force Will Be Held Accountable Under the Rule of Law PRESS CONFERENCE Date: August 14, 2002 Time: 9:00 AM (Central Time) Location: Doubletree Hotel Tucson Room (Main Ballroom) Campbell Centre 8250 North Central Expressway Dallas, Texas 75206 (Washington, DC) Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption and abuse, announced today that it is filing a shareholders suit in federal court in San Francisco, California, against Deputy Attorney General and Corporate Crime Task Force head Larry D. Thompson and other directors and officers of Providian Financial Corporation, as well as Providian itself, for alleged securities fraud involving misleading accounting practices and insider trading. Incredibly, Deputy AG Thompson was recently appointed by Attorney General John Ashcroft and the Bush-Cheney administration to head the Corporate Crime Task Force, which was recently created to combat the very kind of fraud and corruption alleged in this new lawsuit. Documents filed by Providian with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission state that Thompson was the Chairman of the Providian Audit and Compliance Committee for several years prior to his resignation to become Deputy Attorney General in mid-2001. The Complaint alleges that Thompson and other director and officer defendants knew that Providian’s financial condition was deteriorating and adopted a fraudulent scheme to delay recognition of losses from the second quarter 2001 into the third quarter 2001, thereby artificially enhancing and inflating Providian’s stock prices and allowing the individual defendants to exercise their stock options and sell their stock to unsuspecting buyers before Providian’s true financial condition could be discovered. The Complaint further alleges that Thompson abused his official position to block any action by the Justice Department into the alleged fraudulent and illegal activities of Providian and the current and former insiders, including Thompson himself. “Whether it is the Enron, Arthur Andersen, Global Crossing, Halliburton, Harken, or now the Providian scandal, there is a dangerous intersection between politicians of all stripes, Democrat and Republican, attempting to feed at the trough of business greed. The Providian scandal is especially egregious because it highlights this incestuous relationship in perhaps its clearest form – a director who allegedly participated in and profited personally from alleged securities fraud is appointed to a key government position where he is alleged, on information and belief, to have abused his official office to block appropriate government enforcement action,” stated Judicial Watch Chairman and General Counsel Larry Klayman. | |