Former Chief Financial Officer of Bankrate Inc. Sentenced- Orchestrating a Complex (Fraud Scheme)

[nitpicker]

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdfl/pr/former-chief-financial-officer-bankrate-inc-sentenced-10-years-prison-orchestrating

Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
Southern District of Florida

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, September 25, 2018

Former Chief Financial Officer of Bankrate Inc. Sentenced To 10 Years in Prison for Orchestrating a Complex Accounting and Securities Fraud Scheme

WASHINGTON – The former chief financial officer of Bankrate Inc., a publicly traded financial services and marketing company formerly headquartered in North Palm Beach, Florida, was sentenced today to 10 years in prison for orchestrating an accounting and securities fraud scheme that caused more than $25 million in shareholder losses.
(snip)

Edward J. DiMaria, 53, of Fairfield County, Connecticut, was sentenced by Chief U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore of the Southern District of Florida, who also imposed three years of supervised release and ordered DiMaria to pay restitution in the amount of $21,234,214. On June 28, DiMaria pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to making false statements to a public company’s accountants, falsifying a public company’s books, records and accounts, and securities fraud; and one count of making materially false statements to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
(snip)

As part of his guilty plea, DiMaria admitted that between 2010 and 2014 he directed and conspired to commit a complex scheme to artificially inflate Bankrate’s earnings through so-called “cookie jar” or “cushion” accounting, whereby millions of dollars in unsupported expense accruals were purposefully left on Bankrate’s books and then selectively reversed in later quarters to boost earnings. In addition, DiMaria admitted that he conspired with other Bankrate employees to misrepresent certain company expenses as “deal costs” in order to artificially inflate publicly reported adjusted earnings metrics. DiMaria made materially false statements to Bankrate’s independent auditors to conceal the improper accounting entries, and he caused Bankrate’s financial statements filed with the SEC to be materially misstated, he admitted.
(snip)