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H-P's Dunn Enters No Plea, Charges Dismissed
GogglesPisano writes "CNN earlier reported that former HP chairwoman Patricia Dunn would plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of fraudulent wire communications stemming from her involvement in last year's corporate eavesdropping scandal. The story was later amended after charges again st Dunn were dropped. The original charges, four felony counts, were reduced to misdemeanors in exchange for a plea bargain. Her three co-defendants are expected to receive 96 hours of community service; in Dunn's case this sentence is likely to be waived due to illness." Update: 03/15 02:21 GMT by KD : The prosecutor in the case issued a correction to the eariler pronouncement that Dunn would plead guilty to a misdemeanor. "At court today, Patricia Dunn did not enter any plea in response to the misdemeanor count, and the court exercised its discretion by dismissing the case against her," the revised statement said.
Rubbish! Dunn should still be expected do some light community services despite the illness.
Phone cleaning lady springs to mind, it's lightwork.
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
According to TFA the court dismissed the charges against Dunn - do the submitters not read the TFA either ?
From Wikipedia:
"Dunn has survived breast cancer and melanoma, and was diagnosed with Stage IV ovarian cancer in January 2004. Chemotherapy treatment led to remission until August 2006, when she underwent surgery to remove liver metastases. Dunn was scheduled to start chemotherapy for advanced ovarian cancer on 6 October 2006 at the University of California-San Francisco Medical Center."
She didn't plead guilty, the charges were dropped. From TFA:
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- A state judge in California Wednesday dropped the charges against ex-Hewlett-Packard chair Patricia Dunn, who was accused of wire fraud in the company's boardroom spying scandal. Earlier today the California Attorney General's office issued an incorrect press release stating that defendants would enter guilty pleas to the wire fraud charges.
Plea bargain down to misdemeanours, sentence waived due to illness.
Gee I bet she's quaking in her boots.
I wonder if the judge is now an HP shareholder.
I bet she'll even pick up a pay-rise this year from HP.
I'd get a stiffer penalty for jaywalking
These assholes get away clean, with no criminal records and not a day in jail. Wanna bet what would happen to you or I if we got caught doing the same thing?
Gee, I always wondered if white collar crime was ok, but now I have my answer. What a sad state this country is in. If you have any combination of money and/or power, magically you're not a criminal anymore. This doesn't sound familiar does it?
Still, I seriously doubt that you or I would receive only community service sentence.
Why would Tom Perkins takes her to the cleaners? Let her clean her own stuff.
http://www.rense.com/general79/wdx1.htm
Her three co-defendants are expected to receive 96 hours of community service; in Dunn's case this sentence is likely to be waived due to illness.
Ah, the system works....oh wait no it doesnt.
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
http://money.cnn.com/2007/03/14/technology/hpq/ind ex.htm?cnn=yes
"Earlier today the California Attorney General's office issued an incorrect press release stating that defendants would enter guilty pleas to the wire fraud charges."
Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
Leeway for the submitter? Okay. But whoever approved it to go on the front page needs to make a correction as quickly as possible. The headline and summary are just plain wrong. Seriously. 180 degrees.
I didn't see it posted as a "mysterious future" article or I would have e-mailed the editor to say, "Hey, this is extremely incorrect, and you need to not post it..."
A regular joe charged with a similar felony probably wouldn't get a chance to plea bargain down to misdemeanor, either. If they did, they'd still get more than a few hours of community service.
Welcome to the real world, though; if you have money, you can walk. It's the capitalistic way!
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I'm wondering if they didn't change the article out from under us. This was submitted to digg the same way, pointing to the same article. This is backed up by the fact that the AG originally put out an incorrect press release. I hate it when they change things that without linking to the history or even putting "UPDATED" or "CORRECTED".
Yes, that is what the article says.
It goes on to say that the charges were dropped
due to her illness, not because she was innocent,
and that the arrest will remain on her record.
I agree with you on the unfairness.
emt 377 emt 4
The fact that your regular folk would have been F'd in the A for something like this while the corporate suits get off pretty lightly, is yet another reason why it's called the legal system as opposed to the justice system.
"I heard-"
"No, I'm Hurd!"
"Hilarious, are you done?"
"No, I'm Dunn, he's Hurd!"
"Okay, what has he heard?"
At this point, I'm willing to bet everyone reading this is glad that none of the participants in this farce is named Watt...
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
The current bottom of the page tagline is rather amusing...
"Some men rob you with a six-gun -- others with a fountain pen. -- Woodie Guthrie"
Well, if CNN revised their article after learning that the AG office's press release was incorrect, they should have posted the revised story as a new story and put a link to the revised story in place of the first one with a note saying that it's been revised. News stories should not be treated like it were the news company's Wiki.
It's somewhat bad policy not to leave some trail of the revision history. Why do journalists feel they can be so sloppy about their work? Do the editors not take their jobs seriously anymore?
I read an interesting article in the New Yorker about this whole fiasco. The underlying theme was that lots of people were responsible for the disaster, but none of them actually realized what was going on. Dunn and Hurd, in particular, repeatedly asked both legal counsel and the people doing the problematic projects whether it was legal. I believe TNY cited evidence of five separate written requests for assessment of legality from Dunn alone, and every one of them came back with repeated assurances that everything was legal, these were routine operations, and there was no problem.
The other point of the article was that Dunn and Hurd both had access to the same material, both helped decide what needed to be done, and directed what was going on, but at the end of the day, Dunn lost her job and was charged with multiple felonies, while Hurd is now running the company.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Very true. A regular joe will get prosecuted for using marijuana even if her doctor says it is the only thing keeping her alive. So not only is she getting prosecuted while having health problems, the prosecution will make her health problems kill her.
p /index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/03/14/med.marijuana.a
Strange that they would make a prediction. Perhaps that is a coverup as to what really happened.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Everyone should tag it as inaccurate (or should that be "!accurate"). That's a tag I wish would catch on. Then they should auto-filter out all inaccurate and dupe articles from the default front page.
Is that hundred million dollars really worth it?
96 hours, thats a stratjakt-sized work week!
Or 96 Patricia Dunn work weeks.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I'm I the only person who sees plea bargains as unjust?
If someone did a crime, he deserves an appropriate penalty. If he did no crime, he deserves no penalty.
Plea bargains say, we're kind of sure you did the time, but you can't afford the risk of a defense and/or the risk of being falsely convicted, and we'd rather not spend the money investigating / prosecuting to the point where we could convince a jury, so how about we split the difference?
The result: the guilty go free, and the innocent pay a price. Nice.
It's not the capitalist way.
There is nothing uniquely capitalist about using political power and connections to be treated differently by the justice system. It happens all over the world. It's always happened here in the US too.
In some cases, actually offering money (aka capitalism) will get you in more trouble while hinting that you can get them a job, an invite to the party, get their relative a nice fat government contract, is safer and more effective. It's so popular even communists and fascists do it.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Medical marijuana is a pain killer, not a cure for anything. So there is never going to be a situation where marijuana is the only thing keeping someone alive. Bad comparison.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Or send her to the NPO I work for. We can (gladly) make her work-off her sentance by making her sit in our NOC and fix all of our broken HP products, or at least get (some of) them to work. =p
the only permanence in existence, is the impermanence of existence.
Suspending a sentence isnt the same as reducing it.
On paper she was still sentenced to community service, and if she's before a judge again one day, that's what he'll see. That's what's on her record, that the crime she was convicted of was serious enough to warrant that penalty. That's what hurts. Spending a half day picking up cans, and then having your supervisor sign "96 hours" (thats how community service works in my experience) doesn't mean anything.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Read the parents link. Her doctor testified that marijuana is the only drug that allows her to eat. He has tried all other treatments, with no response.
Eating is a biological necessity. Marijuana IS keeping her (and many other similar patients) alive.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
True, but that is not the way it should be. Justice should be blind to money and power as it is to all else except the facts relevant to the case at hand. Arguably, any system where it isn't blind to money and power is a long way from perfect.
This blatant and unapologetic nature of this decision, and others of a similar outcome, point to the particularly greedy and corrosive nature of our system of capitalism. We value money so much that we do not even attempt to disguise the fact that it can buy you out of anything. The rules are different for the rich in America, and we don't care who knows it.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Once in a while, for PR purposes, someone has to take a real fall (eg. Lay, Martha). Usually they get pampered once they're out of the spotlight.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
I have had someone I cared about die because she could not eat, and was not going to use an illegal drug to help with her pain and loss of appetite. (Even though one of her doctors suggested it.) Would she have lived if she could have finished her cancer treatments? Maybe, but not being to eat because of her other medicines did kill her.
I really just don't see the whole point - I don't wish to take any recreational drugs, but I can not see any problems with any illegal drugs that was not also true of bathtub gin and the alcohol runners and sellers during the US prohibition.
I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress -J Adams
- they asked their "Chief Ethics Officer" about the mess, wasn't that Hunsacker's title?, about the legality of it all.
You don't ask a lawyer to explain what is ethical. You ask lawyers what's LEGAL, not what's ETHICAL.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
You obviously didn't read the article. The doctor has her take it in order to give her an appetite. Without it she doesn't eat. If you don't eat, you die. So the marijuana is keeping her alive, albeit indirectly.
Whining about how the rich and powerful have it easy in the /. echo chamber is the easiest thing to do. It makes you and the moderators feel better too.
Meanwhile, it's our economy (that means your economic prosperity in comparison to others in the world) that is ultimately harmed when investors all over the globe invest their funds in more transparent markets.
Here in California we voted _lots_ of harsh penalties for violent and drug-related crimes. Who says we can't do the same for white collar crimes?
Oh wait. That means you and I would have to _do_ something about it. Nevermind.
Got Trader Joe's? friendwich.com RSS feeds work now!
Speak for yourself -- I wouldn't get touched either, I'm stinking rich!! . . . you insensitive clod!
(heh, jk, no im not)
$META_SIG_JOKE
There isn't a lot of point in putting dying people in jail no matter what they have done. The purpose of imprisonment is to protect society from people that may harm it when there is no other option, not to get some smug feeling of revenge well served. There are better uses of taxpayers money than expensive imprisonment for petty revenge - so even utter bastards of corporate criminals are better neutered by preventing them from practicing anything that will allow them to reoffend and discouraging them with fines. As for the dying, they are unlikely to ever reoffend and may not even survive to the end of expensive proceedings designed to put them in jail for a very brief period of cruel and expensive time in prison hospitals.
We, the common citizens, do not have any power of the purse--it's all taxed away to be allocated at someone else's discretion.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
It's not really possible for me to feel sorry for a multimillionaire. I really don't care what the ailment is. If they're a multimillionaire they should've known better than to become caught up in illegal activities. If they're dumb enough to be caught, when they had the financial ability to step out and say "I can't agree to this", then they deserve every last hour of punishment we can give them. It's not like she would've become homeless for staying out of the mess to begin with.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
> The Enron guy got to fake his death and walk away with gazillions.
Ok, Ok, You made your point. Where should I send the money?
You can shop around until you find one to tell you what you want to hear.
They will cluck when you are caught, then offer to defend you.
Then offer to defend you on appeal.
Good point, in a lot of white collar crime cases in my country judges rule that those convicted cannot work as company directors, CEO's or various other restrictions for set periods of time - that is what protects society is you put them in a position where the cannot commit the original crime again for a long period of time. If they break these conditions I think it's contempt of court or definitely a breach of some kind that does result in jail time to keep them from re-offending.
Were any other restrictions were placed on those found guilty in the case of Enron or is it still ongoing, or even just dropped? If it was dropped it looks very much like a scapegoat was found and the others set loose once justice looked like it was done in the TV news soundbites.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Karma is unknowable. Who are you to say what karmic result the Universe might deem appropriate for any given action?
At any rate, the GP poster is still an idiot, because karma is a much larger system than that. It doesn't work on the scale of "kick a dog, get struck by lightning". I wish that it wasn't bad karma to do horrible things to all those long haired new age dumbfucks out there who blame illnesses, accidents, and general bad luck on bad karma--- it ain't like that. It's more of a "be a bad person your whole life and risk coming back the next life as a bug" sort of arrangement. Smug, self-satisfied vegans don't have nearly the lock on good karma they think they do.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
they plead no contest. It's much different.
It's slightly different. It only keeps your plea from being used against you in other cases. Otherwise, it's treated the same as a guilty plea. This is typically done when the defendant expects a civil case to follow the criminal one, and the confession of guilt would prejudice it. This could be why she's not saying, "I admit that I was wrong, and I'm grateful for the judgement," because technically she didn't admit to being wrong, she was just surrendering her case.
The judge didn't accept the pleas anyway, preferring to dismiss the charges, so it didn't matter in the end.
Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others. -Groucho Marx
Someone who commits a real crime gets off scott free due to illness, whereas,& id=5122773 dying woman is loses her appeal,
on the same day,
in the same state,
this http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=politics
and is sent to prison for smoking dope.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
I didn't say much above, so i don't know where the concept of not locking up sick people that are a present threat to society came from. This person is not violent and is no longer in any position to commit another corporate crime for the remainder of their life, so either locking her up or poking her eye out with a stick is pointless, cruel, expensive and no deterrent. It's the others with just community service and no restrictions on how they continue their working life that is the problem - I do not know why they are not barred from any position of responsibility for a long period of time or at least given strict reporting conditions to make the consequences of reoffending more severe.
It's not like that either. Karma is a notion that effects of intentions do not vanish. Literally translated "karma" means intent. It doesn't mean "what's coming to you". The "what's coming to you" part is called karma vipaka. (the result of karma, or karmic "retribution" where retribution is not to be understood in the strictly moralistic sense)
What's unknowable about karma and its results is the specifics. Be a bad person and come back as a bug? We don't know. You can come back as a rich person. You can be a good person and come back as a bug. The specifics are not possible to calculate and/or establish.
What is generally said is that positive mindstream generally flows into positive mindstream. (Not always...no guarantees). So if you're a good person you may become a good bug with a good bug life -- positive experience. You donate lots and help lots of people and you might be reborn as a poor leper who is very happy and satisfied with life. It's not a tit for tat system as you say. No matter how absurdly good your karma is, you can be reborn in hell realm -- it's just that your life won't be that bad there. But this is uncertain.
There is an element of uncertainty in karma and karmic result/retribution. Besides the fact that specifics are unknowable, the general direction is also uncertain. Why? Because it's impossible to establish it. That's why.
The only thing we can be sure about is that the results of actions do not vanish into nothingness. But what exactly happens? Even Buddhas do not know.
That can be. But be careful tossing words around. What is the alternative to being self-satisfied? Is being self-dissatisfied more good? I don't think so. Is being smug that bad? Sure, it rubs your ego the wrong way. Is everything that rubs you the wrong way bad?
What you say seems kind of true on the surface, but under deep investigation it is not at all obvious.
Now, I'm not saying let's all be smug and self-satisfied. I'm just saying your criticism is basically hot air that you cannot support with anything other than your personal feelings (certainly not with reason or logic). Just be aware of that and it will be OK. That's what I think.
If anybody got off with a crime, it's the board member that leaked info about company financial issues and strategy to the press, and defied the trust of the board of directors and their elected officer Carly. Most slashdotters are still not getting that most of the bad press and "revelations" about how "bad" Carly was were because of those board members... She was implementing the will of the board as discussed in private meetings and one dissenting board member was publicly undermining her position. Those board members should have been expelled from the company and their stocks ceased/cashed in. If those board members were employees they would be facing criminal and civil court cases worth hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.... Look what Apple does to leakers... that should have been certain members of the board. The board didn't even slap them on the wrist for violation of their affirmed duties to the company!!
I don't get why slashdotters are so against Dunn.. she did exactly what we root for here all the time. She saw a crime committed against her company and went a little overboard. How often do we rally over documents that are outright stolen, broken NDAs, hacked IP addresses and DoS'd websites we don't like... those are all criminal acts too, often because somebody supposedly "cheated" a customer out of a $10 rebate on some toy.
These people who flap their mouths have never really seen somebody waste away and die from cancer, I guarantee it. I mean *really* see it. Like watch every single day as they get thinner, and thinner, and weaker, and weaker, and go through surgery and chemotherapy and spend months in hospitals, wasting away, getting pumped full of valium and zofran (supposed the most effective anti-emetic they have) to keep the nausea at bay while they try futilely to stave off the cancer.
If you had seen it like I have, and somebody told you that smoking pot made them feel even 10% better and able to keep food down and maybe as a result just live a few months longer than they would have otherwise, or be strong enough to walk instead of lying in bed awaiting their death, you'd be growing a fucking cannabis farm for them. Or giving them whatever the hell they want, public policy stupidity be damned.
What garbage. We all know what would have happened if you or I had done what the Dunn woman did. Locked up for years without hope.
but I can not see any problems with any illegal drugs that was not also true of bathtub gin and the alcohol runners and sellers during the US prohibition.
Illegal drugs don't have a SWAT team of lobbyists.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I don't know why you write off deterrence. It's not about deterring the sick lady from committing fraud again - it's about deterring others from committing fraud.
Do the crime, do the time. If you've only got 6 months to live, tough. Die in prison. This isn't cruelty, it's justice.
(I'm not happy about the others skating on these charges either)
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
This shows everything that is wrong with legal systems in the 'free' world.
I thought Karma was the stuff you got for getting good modpoints. Mod me up, mod me up! Need karma!
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
It's not so simple as an eye for an eye - that's vote winning rhetoric of Christianity Lite - now with 80% less Jesus than conventional hard line protestants.
No offense, but I don't think you know what you're posting about. Are you a lawyer? If not, would you please explain where get these bizzaro world laws from?
If you're guilty, but also have an life threatening illness then a judge can decide god has already punished you enough. No need for the legal system to do anything. Move along. You don't even have to plead guilty for your crimes.
On the other hand, if you're guilty and have a really good lawyer, money, and run a large company you don't even need to be ill.
My father died from liver cancer last year, and a very good friend of mine is dying from lung cancer right now. (He has metastases [sp?] and last week new cancer cells were detected in his brain water.) Seeing those loved persons disappear slowly, time over time, is one of the hardest things to watch. When my grandma died by a stroke, I thought it was hard. I didn't know how hard it is to watch a loved one dying over months and years.
Joachim
People don't write Manifestos any more -- what's going on in this world? [Frank Zappa]
I know. Sometime between 1980 and today, they seem to have lost all shame.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Sigh. If people were perfect, any system of government would work, but then you wouldn't even need one. The trick is to come up with a system that accounts for people's actual imperfections while still upholding people's rights.
I don't think the rich and powerful lost all shame, as I don't think they had it to begin with. What they had was a sense of connection to and responsibility for their countries and communities. I think they imagined themselves to be like feudal lords, and felt a kind of noblesse oblige. Globalism has destroyed that, and now the rich and powerful live and operate in an extra-national sphere where they are almost completely isolated from the common person.
As Heinlein said, "Never appeal to a man's better nature. He might not have one. Appeal to his self interest instead." How can we show the rich and powerful that it is in their best interest to come down off their pedestal and join the rest of humanity? I think that being on a pedestal, people feel isolated and alone. They may have power, but no true friends, as it is a vicious dog-eat-dog world they live in. The rich have temporary allies who might stab them in the back the moment it is profitable, not friends. Perhaps focusing on this aspect of wealth and power could help convince them there is something in giving up their power that will benefit them.
That won't help with the real crazies, though, and there are a disproportionate number of narcissistic, anti social, and downright sociopathic people in the ranks of the rich and powerful. Rooting them out without resorting to the failed methodology of violent revolution will be the most difficult part of creating a more fair and just system.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
I don't even know what to make of that answer, other than you also have no idea what was leaked and why, or you actually know and for some reason are unable to say what it is.
I can see a few scenarios.
Keyworth was leaking information in effort to win an internal power play with the BoD or senior management. Dunn was fighting back, sloppily, and got caught.
Keyworth was leaking information detrimental to HP. Dunn was trying to prevent these leaks (thereby protecting shareholder value)
Keyworth was leaking information that should have legitimately been shared with stockholders, i.e. something the BoD or senior management was or was not doing that would be detrimental to the company (and therefore shareholder value). Dunn was trying to prevent these leaks because they made her/management/BoD look bad.
I'm just guessing here. "As bad as it could possibly be" can't be the basis of an indictment, much less a conviction. If Dunn really was defrauding shareholders, specific information should be available to support that assertion.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac