Sanjay Kumar, the former chief executive officer of CA Inc., was sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined $8 million for his role in the software company’s $2.2 billion accounting fraud, Bloomberg reported.
In April, Kumar had pled guilty to eight charges, including conspiracy, fraud, and obstruction of justice. Kumar and other CA executives were reportedly accused of backdating contracts to inflate revenue, the Associated Press reported.
The ex-CEO and other executives were charged with instructing salespeople to complete deals after the quarter had closed, which came to be known inside the company as the “35-day month,” according to the AP.
U.S. District Judge Leo Glasser said that though Kumar was not a violent criminal, he “did violence to the legitimate expectations of shareholders,” the Associated Press reported.
Kumar reportedly erased the memory from his laptop after learning of an investigation at CA. Prosecutors said that he authorized the payment of $3.7 million to buy the silence of a potential witness, according to Bloomberg.
Kumar told the judge, according to the wire service, that “I know that I was wrong and there was no excuse for my conduct.”
At the sentencing, prosecutor Eric Komitee called Kumar’s actions “the most brazen and most comprehensive obstruction that we’ve witnessed in recent history.”