It’s a fitting end to a scandal-plagued year.

From Andrew Fastow to Scott Sullivan to Mark Swartz, 2002 will be known as the Year of the Rogue Finance Executive—or at the very least, the year CFOs were hauled into criminal court.

Many other finance managers have been forced to resign amid criminal and Securities and Exchange Commission investigations after their companies announced restatements of financial results.

The last full week of the year was no exception: one high-profile finance exec was fired, a former top CFO was sentenced to prison, and another one mysteriously resigned. And a former Arthur Andersen partner was charged with a number of crimes.

Here’s the breakdown for the last week of 2002:

Charter Fires CFO

On Monday Charter Communications Inc. fired chief financial officer Kent D. Kalkwarf and chief operating officer David G. Barford amid an ongoing grand jury investigation into the company’s accounting practices.

The company added that it has been advised by the U.S. Attorney’s office that no member of the company’s board of directors, including the CEO, is a target of the investigation. The company also indicated it is actively cooperating with the investigation.

“These actions with respect to the management changes and the re-audit of the company’s financials are necessary so that Charter Communications can move forward as we focus on building the company for the future,” said Carl Vogel, Charter’s chief executive officer, in a statement.

Steven A. Schumm, Charter’s executive vice president and chief administrative officer, has been named interim CFO, while Margaret A. “Maggie” Bellville has been named executive vice president and chief operating officer.

Schumm has been a Charter executive since 1998. He is a former managing partner of the St. Louis office of Ernst & Young, where he worked for about 25 years.

Bellville has spent more than 20 years in the cable industry, including as executive vice president of operations for Cox Communications Inc., the nation’s fourth-largest cable company.

“Kalkwarf’s removal came out of the blue,” Stifel Nicolaus analyst Ted Henderson told Reuters.

Charter is currently reauditing its 2000 and 2001 financials. It expects to complete the reaudits as well as the audit of 2002 results in the first quarter of 2003.

Vogel also said the company will institute a rigorous corporate compliance program, which will include the appointment of a corporate compliance officer, the establishment of a compliance hotline, and the adoption of a comprehensive expanded employee code of conduct.

Ex—Cisco Finance Executive Sentenced

Meanwhile, late last week Robert Gordon, former Cisco Systems director of corporate finance and business development, was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison, according to the Associated Press.

Last summer, Gordon pleaded guilty to defrauding the company of more than $50 million from 1997 to 2000 and reaping about $2.6 million from illegal insider trading.

Gordon’s lawyers had argued that the former finance executive suffered from mental illness, trotting out psychiatric reports suggesting he suffered from latent schizophrenia since childhood, according to the wire service’s account. Judge Jeremy Fogel of Federal District Court turned down requests for leniency, however.

“I’m not convinced his criminal conduct was caused by mental illness,” Fogel reportedly said. “What Mr. Gordon did is very, very serious.”

As part of his plea bargain, Gordon admitted that he created at least two accounts with the goal of transferring stock worth $38.5 million and other Cisco assets for his personal use, according to the AP. He also admitted to defrauding Cisco of another $5 million in a fake loan transaction.

Gordon, however, is not the only finance executive at Cisco to run afoul of the law in the past year or so.

In November 2001 former Cisco accountants Geoffrey Osowski and Wilson Tang were each sentenced to 34 months in prison for exceeding their authorized access to the company’s computer systems to illegally issue almost $8 million in Cisco stock to themselves.

Symbol CFO Resigns

File this announcement under “Full Disclosure.”

On Monday Symbol Technologies Inc. said Kenneth V. Jaeggi resigned as senior vice president and chief financial officer, effective January 2.

It added that William Nuti, president and chief operating officer, will serve as acting CFO.

Richard Bravman, vice chairman of the board and chief executive officer, said the search for a CFO is under way, adding that it expects to complete the search by the close of 2003’s first quarter.

Pretty straightforward? Well, back in September Michael DeGennaro, former senior vice president of corporate finance, left the bar-code company under a cloud of secrecy.

On August 13, Jaeggi and Bravman certified the company’s financial results.

The same day, Symbol management indicated that the SEC was investigating the timing and amount of revenue the company recognized from January 2000 to December 2001. It added that it may wind up restating its results.

SEC Charges Former Andersen Partner

The SEC has brought charges against Robert A. Putnam, a former Arthur Andersen LLP partner, stemming from audits he performed for two separate public companies: HBO & Co. and Ebix.com Inc.

The SEC alleges that Putnam committed or caused violations of the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws while serving as HBO’s outside audit engagement partner.

It also alleges that Putnam engaged in improper professional conduct during his work for HBO and while the engagement partner on the Ebix audit.

“Putnam was the audit engagement partner for HBO during the time that senior management [was] directing a massive financial reporting fraud scheme,” the SEC asserted.

HBO’s fraud began in 1997 and continued after its January 1999 merger with McKesson Corp., which resulted in the formation of McKesson HBOC Corp., according to the SEC’s complaint. When the alleged fraud was first disclosed in April 1999, McKesson HBO shares nearly halved, from about $65 to $34.

The SEC has already brought fraud and other charges against nine former HBO and McKesson HBOC officers and employees for their roles in the fraud.

According to the commission’s order, Putnam approved Andersen’s issuance of six false quarterly review reports during 1997 and 1998 and a false 1997 audit report on HBO’s financial statements. These reports were incorporated into HBO’s public filings, it added.

“Putnam knew, or was reckless in not knowing, that HBOC’s accounting practices did not conform to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, and that Andersen did not conduct its quarterly reviews and audit in compliance with Generally Accepted Auditing Standards,” the SEC said in its order.

The SEC alleges that Putnam knew that during the first quarter of 1997, HBO’s reported pretax income was overstated by 9.4 percent, and that in subsequent periods he knew the company was reporting financial results that were significantly inflated, in part because of revenue contingencies found in side letters and HBO’s deliberate misuse of reserve accounts.

In the case of Ebix, a software developer and marketer, the SEC alleges Putnam became aware that various customers claimed that they were entitled to refunds of deposits on software and would not pay certain outstanding invoices because they claimed the software Ebix had delivered did not function properly.

“Despite the negative confirmations, Putnam conducted no further investigation and accepted management’s representation that the software functioned properly and the revenue was collectible,” the commission added.

In 2000 Ebix restated its financials for 1998, reducing its software revenue by $3.4 million of a total of more than $19 million in revenue the company recognized for the period.

Putnam’s attorney, Steve Rosenburg, told Dow Jones that Putnam could have settled the case without admitting any wrongdoing “but instead has chosen, at great personal cost, to fight the charges.” He added, “The evidence will show Skip was a victim and he expects to be vindicated.”

E&Y, Law Firms Face $1 Billion-plus Suit

Ten former clients have sued Ernst & Young and two law firms for more than $1 billion for allegedly convincing them to enter into illegal tax shelters, according to Reuters, citing a statement from Fensterstock & Partners, the law firm representing the plaintiffs.

The lawsuit alleges E&Y, Jenkens & Gilchrist, and Sidley Austin Brown & Wood convinced more than 50 clients to enter into currency option trades to create paper capital losses that offset real capital gains on which they would have had to pay taxes.

The suit also charges that without their authorization, E&Y disclosed the plaintiffs’ names to the Internal Revenue Service, which had served summonses on the accounting firm seeking information about the tax shelters.

“While we have not had the opportunity to look at it thoroughly, even at this stage it is obvious that it is without merit and we will vigorously defend against it,” Jenkens & Gilchrist said in a statement, according to Reuters. “Also, at Jenkens & Gilchrist, we take the attorney-client privilege very seriously and would only comment on this lawsuit if we believe that by suing us, this particular client has waived that right.”