Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Homestore's Wolff Pleads Guilty

Stuart Wolff, the former CEO and Chairman of the board of Homestore.com, plead guilty Tuesday to participating in a scheme to artificially inflate the firm's online advertising revenue. Wolff had agreed to plead guilty last week, in a deal which calls for a sentence of at least three years and up to a maximum of five years in federal prison. Wolff had originally been convicted in 2006 of more than a dozen criminal charges and sentenced to 15 years in federal prison; however, that conviction was reversed in January of 2008 by an appeals court. The U.S. Attorney's office said that Wolff is the 12th individual from Homestore convicted of federal charges. The Attorney's office explained that Homestore shareholders lost at least $100M in 2001, when an investigation into the firm's accounting irregularities became public. Homestore is now known as Move.com.