| Suits on the lam |
|
Corporate chiefs wanted
by the law can run, but can they hide? |
| NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Maybe it's
panic, hubris, guilt -- or a combination of the three. But every now and
again, a corporate chief accused of breaking the law hightails it rather
than face the prospect of a long time behind bars.
It's happened twice in recent weeks. There was Herbert Axelrod, a multimillionaire publisher of pet care books who fled the country in April soon after indictment in a tax fraud scheme involving a rare collection of violins. He went to Cuba, then Switzerland, and was arrested last week as he stepped off a plane in Berlin. Next came Tomo Razmilovic, the former CEO of bar code scanner maker Symbol Technologies, who was charged with accounting fraud last month. He fled first to his native Croatia before surfacing last week in Sweden, where he told a local newspaper he intends to stay -- if Swedish authorities let him. Axelrod and Razmilovic join a long list of corporate suits who have fled the feds through the decades. More could soon follow. Criminal defense lawyers say clients are more anxious than ever now that a post-Enron tightening of the federal sentencing guidelines has seen jail terms skyrocket to potential life imprisonment in the worst fraud cases. "We're going to start seeing sentences come down that are analogous to what crack dealers are getting because of the kick-up in the sentencing guidelines," said Douglas McNabb, a Houston criminal defense lawyer and expert on international extradition. For example, former Dynegy Inc. executive Jamie Olis last month started serving more than 24 years for fraud. |