Monday, November 5, 2007

You only get one chance...



The headliners at the party were 50 Cent, Don Henley of the Eagles and Aerosmith, who was paid $1 million to perform and arrived on the company's private jet. It seems that David Brooks, former CEO od DHB Industries, found that having DHB pay for the once in a lifetime party was a better use of $10 million than making sure that the Interceptor body armor suits they manufactured weren't defective.

Brooks is now facing 21 counts of alleged insider trading, securities fraud, tax evasion and obstruction of justice. Those charges stem from what authorities state is his alleged inflation of the company stock and then his bilking DHB out of millions to support a fairy tale lifestyle. They claim that he had cashed in $185 million in company stock right before the New York Police Department recalled 6,000 of DHB vests for being defective.

Some people may understand Brook's spending $200,000 on a Bentley, they are expensive cars last I checked but he also used the money to pay for his ex-wife's facelift, a $100,000 belt buckle and the whopper........ $10 million on his 13 year-old daughter's bat mitzvah. Even doing a bit of quick math leaves me wondering, after paying for the three music groups and using the DHB corporate jet, what exactly did he manage to spend the remaining money on?



"This is another form of corporate irresponsibility, of where corporate officers knowingly ship defective products in order to boost the revenue of the company to benefit themselves financially," stated Bill Lerach, shareholder's attorney
in 2002.

In 2004, DHB Industries was awarded a $200 million contract to provide body armor to the U S Military for troops fighting in Iraq and Afganistan. In May 2005, the Marines recalled more than 5,000 of the vests after government tests revealed critical life-threatening flaws in them. Following suit, the New York police found that almost one quarter of the vests wore by their officers were defective. Our troops and officers are facing bullets it would seem with defective vest while Brooks was living the high life without many concerns except how best to waster corporate money.

Brooks could face life in prison for his apparent wild spending..... again I am guessing but if he does get tossed in jail, I bet his daughter's wedding won't quite be so spectacular.


H/T to Neel Shah @ Radar

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