The part most interesting to me:

Mr. Roberts was originally charged with seven felonies in February 2007 including allegations that he altered the stock options prices for the company’s former chief executive. But prosecutors whittled the case down to three counts by the time trial started Sept. 18 and focused solely on the single transaction in 2000.

This is something that they didn’t tell us (probably because it would’ve been totally irrelevant) but it makes me wonder if they had more evidence that we didn’t see.  As you can guess from the verdict, they were pretty thin on what it takes to convince a jury of the charges they eventually had.  I’m not sure what else they could’ve tried to pin on him.

The case was about a stock option grant at MacAffee/Network Associates for which the date/grant price was changed in some way back in 2000. It was never sold, but it belonged to the VP of Legal Affairs at the time, and over the course of the next four years, he reported it on SEC filings and other forms, possibly opening him to mail fraud charges. Eventually, when the company was investigating the stock issues, he came forward and was promptly fired. And even more eventually, the FBI filed charges against him.

Despite the two banker’s boxes of evidence and several days of testimony, we found him not guilty on two halves of the charges of mail fraud and hung on the other halves, as well as on the question of altering company records.

Things I learned:

• Your email is going to sound really stupid when read aloud by a witness in a federal court. Trust me.
• Please remember to date any papers you sign. While it may not result in the verdict you want, it will probably result in a faster one. Your jury will thank you (even if they convict you).
• If you ever have a conversation about changing the date/price of your stock options with someone, and they later get changed, you should immediately find out if that’s legal.
• FBI agents really do come in pairs. Ours looked like Rob Corddrey and Matt Daemon.
• Yes, they _will_ introduce all the relevant documentation in paper format. We had a binder containing 1600 pages of every stock grant given by MacAfee over 10 years. “Just in case.”
• They will also very likely introduce as evidence the greeting card that everybody signed when you got fired. And possibly bring in one of the people who signed it to testify.
• It’s pretty amazing anyone ever gets convicted. Think of the last time you tried to get 12 people to agree on where to have dinner. Now try to get them all to agree that all five elements of a mail fraud indictment were satisfied by evidence presented by the prosecution over a period of two weeks.
• Code names matter. In this case, an investigation into stock backdating was called “Project Shield.” The defense claimed that this was because it was because the board wanted to shield themselves from liability. The prosecution actually brought in a senior director of the company that did the investigation in order to explain that it was because they thought that MacAfee made some kind of “shield” related product.

There’s some press about it:
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202424944505
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2008/10/01/in-big-backdating-trial-defense-rests-without-putting-on-witnesses/

Today’s conviction of one of his contemporaries (who signed off on the change). This morning the judge called us in and asked us all if we’d read the papers (since she was going to have to remind us not to pay any attention to this story). She confiscated a few copies of the Chronicle.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/02/BUEU13AKT7.DTL

* I didn’t even get to read off the verdict to the court!

Guess what? For the last week, I’ve been empaneled as a juror in a federal criminal case! While I can’t say much more about it right now, believe me when I say that I was too honest to plead a hardship.

Anyway, it means that I get to spend 8:30 to 1:30, Tuesday-Friday, right in the front row of the jury box listening to lawyers.

Becauuse, the time is now into Athena-thirty. Between half-past eight and about eleven, our dear little daughter refuses to be comforted by anything but food and human contact. Seeing as how you can only cram so much milk into a six week old stomach, this is a trying time for mom and dad.

We do refuse to become those parents that put their kid into the car and drive all night. That way lies madness, particularly at $4.49/gallon.

Please take some time off from 30 Rock in order to help SNL with Palin. Pleeeaase?

Best Line: “…wearing your pagent sash and your Tina Fey glasses…”

There’s a new site in town that caught my eye, just for our favorite VPILF, Sarah Palin.

I suspect that just linking to that site, combined with mentioning the name, is likely to get me even more of those fun “Sponsored by McCain” banner ads.  I was pretty impressed on how fast Google got on the ball.

I’m also pretty interested in adding to my wardrobe.  Just in case anyone is actually listening: would this T-shirt be considered funny?  Or in support of the Republicans?

At this point, I think that all of the basic websites and blogs are in place.  I think that Meathook Reality has some issues, though.  For those keeping score, here’s the domains I’m currently bandying about publically:

• http://adam.haberlach.org (I closed down bill, bette, and anna.haberlach.org since I never got them off the ground)
• http://athena.haberlach.org (currently a placeholder)
• http://adamhaberlach.com (placeholder: may become my professional site some day)
• http://mediariffic.com and http://radioriffic.com (future companies or projects)
• http://meathookreality.com (Now-defunct blog of my now-defunct law school career)

I’ve not yet moved the galleries, or http://lindajudson.com.  They’l get their chance.

If you’re really looking for some historical documents, take a look at the News Nipple.  There’s files in that directory timestamped in 2001.  There were parts of that site that were blogs before the word was even invented.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/30/121350/137

The story begins on March 6th, when Sarah decided to come forward and announce to the world that she was pregnant, a monumental occasion for an acting Governor. Republican Governor Jane Maria Swift of Massachusetts was the first sitting Governor in United States history to give birth in office just seven years before, and now here we were once again. Yet, no one could believe the news…