Ex-Comverse CEO who fled to Namibia faces U.S. fraud sentencing

[February 23, 2017]  By Nate Raymond

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The former chief executive officer of Comverse Technology Inc, who returned to the United States last year after spending a decade in Namibia to avoid prosecution, is scheduled to be sentenced on Thursday for engaging in securities fraud.

Jacob "Kobi" Alexander, the Woodbury, New York-based software developer's founder, is expected to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis in Brooklyn, who said the former executive could not be trusted when he pled guilty in August.

Lawyers for Alexander, 64, are seeking a sentence of no more than two years in prison for the Israeli citizen, who has spent six months in custody after Garaufis rejected his request for release on a $25 million bond.

In a letter to the court, Alexander urged Garaufis to consider the "good things" he did while living in Namibia and apologized for fleeing.

"I know I should have come back sooner but I could not bring myself to face the consequences of my actions," he wrote.

But prosecutors in court papers argued Alexander's flight warrants a "substantial sentence." He faces up to 10 years in prison.

The case was one of the last open U.S. prosecutions arising from government or internal investigations of backdating of stock options at over 200 companies, including Comverse, which was acquired in 2013 by former unit Verint Systems Inc.

In backdating, a company retroactively grants stock options on dates when stock prices were lower, making them more valuable. Concealing the practice through improper accounting is illegal, and can inflate earnings.

Prosecutors said that from 1998 to 2001 Alexander participated in a scheme to use hindsight to select the effective dates for granting options for employees, resulting in misleading statements to investors.

Fugitive U.S. millionaire Jacob "Kobi" Alexander sits with his wife Hanna, as he awaits the start of his extradition hearing in Windhoek, September 17, 2008. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo

Alexander fled to Namibia with his family in July 2006 amid the investigation, prosecutors said. Charges were announced that August against him, William Sorin, Comverse's general counsel, and David Kreinberg, its finance chief.

Sorin pleaded guilty and was sentenced to one year in prison. Kreinberg was spared prison after pleading guilty.

While abroad, Alexander agreed in 2009 to pay $60 million to Comverse in connection with shareholder litigation, and to waive over $72 million in claims he had against Comverse.

He settled related civil government lawsuits in 2010, resulting in a $6 million penalty by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The case is U.S. v. Alexander, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York, No. 06-cr-00628.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

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