Say it isn't so Joe...

A couple of years ago, I was a bit player in a very powerful event. As I have written before, I was sitting in my office, reading in almost real time the blogs of my friends Dan Gillmor and Doc Searls. Both were at PC Forum. Both were blogging about Joe Nacchio, I didn’t know who he was or what Quest was.

With a couple of ActiveWords, I had figured out who, what, when, where, and how he was selling his stock in Quest, while at the same time suggesting to others that Quest was a great deal and being treated unfairly by the market. I shot them an E-Mail with my quick and dirty research in it.

Dan and Doc read the info that I sent them, they blogged it, and the attitudes in the room toward Nacchio radically changed.

I heard rumblings earlier this week that Nacchio was about to be indicted. Today the shoe dropped:

Ex-Qwest CEO charged with insider trading

By Paul Taylor in New York
Published: December 20 2005 19:42 | Last updated: December 20 2005 19:42

Joseph Nacchio, the former chief executive of Qwest Communications, was charged on Tuesday with 42 counts of insider trading related to his sale of $100.8m of stock in the once high flying US telecommunications group.

Mr Nacchio, aged 55, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. He is the latest senior US executive to face charges related to their actions during the Internet bubble years.

 

 

There is a further quote in the N.Y. Times from the indictment:

 

"Beginning as early as August 2000, Nacchio was specifically and repeatedly warned about the material, nonpublic financial risks facing Qwest and about Qwest's ability to achieve its aggressive publicly stated financial targets," the prosecutors said in the indictment. "Nacchio's stock sales accelerated in January 2001 as he became aware of additional material, nonpublic information."

 

My friend Esther Dyson either wrote or told me that it was a seminal moment in Internet time. I had always hoped that I would meet Nacchio before he went away. Doesn’t look like that is going to happen.

 

My friends Shel Israel and Robert Scoble have included this story in their book, I wonder if they have time to put in a footnote about Joe going down!

 

One of the things that I learned in the white collar criminal legal defense business is that when you are the guy at the top, you usually don’t have anyone to “roll” on, so my take is that Joe has real problems, and they aren’t going to end anytime soon!

 

I wonder if it was all worth the risk of spending a long time in jail?