From the Wall Street Journal:
Former TigerDirect President Indicted in $230 Million Laundering SchemeQuite the lifestyle. I am still amazed that people think these activities can continue unnoticed. That there is a graceful exit strategy to them. They will always be caught. Now it is time to pay the piper...
The former president of a unit of Systemax Inc. was indicted in New York federal court on seven counts of fraud and money laundering charges.
Carl Fiorentino, who was arrested in Coral Gables, Fla., allegedly took more than $7 million in bribes and kickbacks in exchange for steering more than $230 million in business to the Taiwanese and California companies that made the payments.
He allegedly used the kickbacks to buy an $8 million residence in Coral Gables, Fla., furnishings for the home and pay his credit card bills, as well as pay for tennis coaching and the use of a hip-hop production company.
�Fiorentino had it all � a lucrative job and a high-flying lifestyle,� said Loretta E. Lynch, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, in a statement. �But� his loyalties were neither to his employer nor its public shareholders but solely to himself,� she said.
He�s being held on $1 million bond, and an arraignment is scheduled for July 8 in federal court in Central Islip, N.Y. Sylvia Pinera Vazquez, an attorney for Fiorentino, didn�t respond to a request for comment.
Fiorentino worked for Sytemax from 1995 through May 2011 and he was the president of TigerDirect, its computer and electronics unit. As president, he was involved in picking suppliers and approving the quantity of the purchases from those suppliers.
