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.

Comments

Sickness

[Anonymous Coward]

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."

Summary is wrong, once again.

[Radon360]

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.

Well well...

[GFree]

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.

Hurd and Dunn? Sounds like a comedy routine

[spun]

"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...

CNN revisionists in action?

[Radon360]

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?

Re:Wrong

[GogglesPisano]

Yes, I did read the article.

In the roughly three hours that elapsed between the time that I submitted the story and the time that it appeared on the Slashdot front page, there were apparently further developments in the story and the article on CNN was changed.

I refer you to the (modified) CNN article:

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.

Re:Phone Cleaning

[ltbarcly]

What a bunch of crap. She's well enough to run a major corporation, but too sick to go to jail?

It goes to show you that if you're rich, you won't go to jail no matter what.

ambiguous responsibility

[smellsofbikes]

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.

Re:Can't you read? Charges were dropped!

[HomelessInLaJolla]

the particularly greedy and corrosive nature of our system of capitalism Our system of capitalism isn't really capitalism. It's a pyramid scheme of debt. Those in priveleged parts of the pyramid are allowed to create debt for others (see HP's stock price), retain profit for themselves (how much were these jokers being paid?), while being shielded from any real-world repercussions (96 hours of suspended community service for four felonies isn't a bad deal at all).

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.

Re:Can't you read? Charges were dropped!

[Dun Malg]

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. No, you're just an idiot pulling ignorance out of his ass. The analgesic effect of THC is secondary. The primary benefit is its anti-nausea effect. It can make the difference between a chemo patient being able to eat vs. not being able to keep anything down and slowly starving and weakening on a glucose drip.